But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what GOD is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously-
take God seriously. Micah 6:8
The journey began 86 years ago on a sharecropper's farm near Sanford Florida. The midwife delivered a boy to Wiley and Belle Wilson, and Wiley Junior was welcomed into this world, as the only boy.
Growing up as the family moved with the crops to be harvested was a hard life. They frequently lived in tents, or in houses in such disrepair my father would say "you could lie there in bed and see the stars." Eventually they all migrated to Macon, GA where they got jobs in Mr. Willingham's Cotton Mill. It was hard, dirty, hot work, and Wiley hated it. So he got a job driving a produce truck back and forth from Central Florida to Macon. But then his mother got sick, and his family had troubles, so he enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Hard work, discipline, and more hard work followed. It was the first time he had been away, and instead of the rolling hills of Macon, he was way back in the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. They planted trees, built bridges and cut roads. He found out about snow. He grew into a man.
World War 2 began, and like millions of other young men, he left home for an uncertain future. But not before marrying a young girl named Lodie. Their families knew each other from the mill village - literally on the wrong side of the tracks. They said their goodbyes knowing that theirs might be a short-lived bond. It lasted almost 50 years.
After breaking his ankle in preparation for a parachute jump over Normandy, he was reassigned as a cook. That was fun while it lasted, but the Army needed machine gunners worse than it needed cooks, and so Wiley was shipped to the Pacific theater. The native Southern boy knew heat and humidity, but not like this.
New Guinea, Saipan, Mindanao, Okinawa. He came ashore on islands where the fighting was so fierce he said you could walk across the beach and never touch the sand, as the bodies of GIs covered it. He fought in the jungles where death came without warning from a sniper's bullet. He manned a machine gun against human wave attacks by the enemy that were so fierce bodies stacked up like cord wood in front of his machine gun, and the barrel got so hot they had to pour water and whatever other liquids they could find on them to keep them from melting. The war ended, he and Lodie came home. The scar on his forehead was a hurt that had healed. The scars inside took longer.
It wasn't easy to make the adjustment. The world seemed different somehow. The two weren't the same people who left the mill village. They (as he put it "wound up") divorced. Then after a while, they got back together and remarried. They got jobs in civil service that they wound up staying at for over 30 years. Life was getting better. He built an indoor bathroom on the shotgun house on Roff Avenue.
Then they were blessed with the news that Lodie was pregnant with twins. Through nine months their hope built to a crescendo. Then the music stopped. You'd have to have known my father to know just how much it hurt him when they died a few days after their birth. And you'd have to have known him and my mother to know how much courage they had to try again.
I was born, then came my brother three years later. We were blessed with a father who loved to watch cartoons with us on Saturday morning, who loved toys and gadgets even more than we did, who took pure delight in not just buying things for us, but being with us. Whether it was playing baseball, fishing, shooting rabbits, or teaching us how to work on lawnmowers and lose tools, he was our daddy. We were his boys. When he disciplined us, I always felt it really did hurt him more than it hurt me.
We did all the stupid things boys do as they grow into manhood, and he endured them all. Broken windows, scrapes and bruises, and later fender benders got us a blessing out after a "you OK?" I got straightened out about marriage; I got straightened out about kids. Never was delivered with anger,always given in love. He only went two weeks into the sixth grade in school, and yet wound up teaching both of us lessons that still guide us today.
He watched as our boys came along, one then the other. There weren't two people loved more on the planet. It was like I ceased to exist except as a vehicle to connect him to Adam and then Sean. Now it was their turn to sit beside him and laugh at Bugs Bunny. It was their time to explore the toys at Toys R Us (sure beat the Hobby Shop). The grandchildren that followed from my brother and his wife never took anything away from anyone - his heart just expanded to hold them all closely.
He was 65 years old when he gave his life to Jesus. It wasn't that he wasn't a good man, because he was. But he had been too busy making a living, building a home, raising his boys to stop and really consider where he was in light of eternity. Growing up, church people hadn't treated his kind of people well. But he never let us stay home when our mother wanted to take us to church. One day a young preacher daddy liked came out to talk. When he left, daddy told us he had become a believer in Jesus and had forgiveness for his sins. He became a faithful attender, and he read his Bible everyday. I know he prayed for all of us.
For almost 53 years now, I have never had a day when I wasn't loved by my father.
Tomorrow I will.
He was a great father, an awesome grandfather and a good man.
What I know about keeping my word - he taught me.
How I know that you are to give a days work for a day's pay - credit to him.
The reason quit isn't in my vocabulary is because my father never quit at anything.
And the way I learned what humility and manhood have in common was watching one of the strongest men I have ever known tenderly admit he had been wrong.
Tom Brokaw coined my daddy's generation the greatest. They defeated the depression, fought a World War and a Cold War and won them both. He would always tell me that his grandchildren would do things he and I could only dream of.
It was never about him. Maybe the most unselfish person I have ever known.
I thank God for giving me a father to be proud of. I thank God for saving his soul. And I thank God that one day maybe I'll be standing there too in heaven, and a big hand will rub the back of my head and ask me "how are you getting along son?"
I'm doing okay, Daddy. But we'll all miss you. Tell Mother we love her for us, will you?
David
what GOD is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously-
take God seriously. Micah 6:8
The journey began 86 years ago on a sharecropper's farm near Sanford Florida. The midwife delivered a boy to Wiley and Belle Wilson, and Wiley Junior was welcomed into this world, as the only boy.
Growing up as the family moved with the crops to be harvested was a hard life. They frequently lived in tents, or in houses in such disrepair my father would say "you could lie there in bed and see the stars." Eventually they all migrated to Macon, GA where they got jobs in Mr. Willingham's Cotton Mill. It was hard, dirty, hot work, and Wiley hated it. So he got a job driving a produce truck back and forth from Central Florida to Macon. But then his mother got sick, and his family had troubles, so he enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Hard work, discipline, and more hard work followed. It was the first time he had been away, and instead of the rolling hills of Macon, he was way back in the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. They planted trees, built bridges and cut roads. He found out about snow. He grew into a man.
World War 2 began, and like millions of other young men, he left home for an uncertain future. But not before marrying a young girl named Lodie. Their families knew each other from the mill village - literally on the wrong side of the tracks. They said their goodbyes knowing that theirs might be a short-lived bond. It lasted almost 50 years.
After breaking his ankle in preparation for a parachute jump over Normandy, he was reassigned as a cook. That was fun while it lasted, but the Army needed machine gunners worse than it needed cooks, and so Wiley was shipped to the Pacific theater. The native Southern boy knew heat and humidity, but not like this.
New Guinea, Saipan, Mindanao, Okinawa. He came ashore on islands where the fighting was so fierce he said you could walk across the beach and never touch the sand, as the bodies of GIs covered it. He fought in the jungles where death came without warning from a sniper's bullet. He manned a machine gun against human wave attacks by the enemy that were so fierce bodies stacked up like cord wood in front of his machine gun, and the barrel got so hot they had to pour water and whatever other liquids they could find on them to keep them from melting. The war ended, he and Lodie came home. The scar on his forehead was a hurt that had healed. The scars inside took longer.
It wasn't easy to make the adjustment. The world seemed different somehow. The two weren't the same people who left the mill village. They (as he put it "wound up") divorced. Then after a while, they got back together and remarried. They got jobs in civil service that they wound up staying at for over 30 years. Life was getting better. He built an indoor bathroom on the shotgun house on Roff Avenue.
Then they were blessed with the news that Lodie was pregnant with twins. Through nine months their hope built to a crescendo. Then the music stopped. You'd have to have known my father to know just how much it hurt him when they died a few days after their birth. And you'd have to have known him and my mother to know how much courage they had to try again.
I was born, then came my brother three years later. We were blessed with a father who loved to watch cartoons with us on Saturday morning, who loved toys and gadgets even more than we did, who took pure delight in not just buying things for us, but being with us. Whether it was playing baseball, fishing, shooting rabbits, or teaching us how to work on lawnmowers and lose tools, he was our daddy. We were his boys. When he disciplined us, I always felt it really did hurt him more than it hurt me.
We did all the stupid things boys do as they grow into manhood, and he endured them all. Broken windows, scrapes and bruises, and later fender benders got us a blessing out after a "you OK?" I got straightened out about marriage; I got straightened out about kids. Never was delivered with anger,always given in love. He only went two weeks into the sixth grade in school, and yet wound up teaching both of us lessons that still guide us today.
He watched as our boys came along, one then the other. There weren't two people loved more on the planet. It was like I ceased to exist except as a vehicle to connect him to Adam and then Sean. Now it was their turn to sit beside him and laugh at Bugs Bunny. It was their time to explore the toys at Toys R Us (sure beat the Hobby Shop). The grandchildren that followed from my brother and his wife never took anything away from anyone - his heart just expanded to hold them all closely.
He was 65 years old when he gave his life to Jesus. It wasn't that he wasn't a good man, because he was. But he had been too busy making a living, building a home, raising his boys to stop and really consider where he was in light of eternity. Growing up, church people hadn't treated his kind of people well. But he never let us stay home when our mother wanted to take us to church. One day a young preacher daddy liked came out to talk. When he left, daddy told us he had become a believer in Jesus and had forgiveness for his sins. He became a faithful attender, and he read his Bible everyday. I know he prayed for all of us.
For almost 53 years now, I have never had a day when I wasn't loved by my father.
Tomorrow I will.
He was a great father, an awesome grandfather and a good man.
What I know about keeping my word - he taught me.
How I know that you are to give a days work for a day's pay - credit to him.
The reason quit isn't in my vocabulary is because my father never quit at anything.
And the way I learned what humility and manhood have in common was watching one of the strongest men I have ever known tenderly admit he had been wrong.
Tom Brokaw coined my daddy's generation the greatest. They defeated the depression, fought a World War and a Cold War and won them both. He would always tell me that his grandchildren would do things he and I could only dream of.
It was never about him. Maybe the most unselfish person I have ever known.
I thank God for giving me a father to be proud of. I thank God for saving his soul. And I thank God that one day maybe I'll be standing there too in heaven, and a big hand will rub the back of my head and ask me "how are you getting along son?"
I'm doing okay, Daddy. But we'll all miss you. Tell Mother we love her for us, will you?
David
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