Lemuel and Rosa and Duke’s Mayonnaise – Part 4

Lemuel asked, “Rosa, is there anything I can pray for, for you or your family or friends?”

Rosa, thoughtfully looking at her customer said, “I’m having cataract surgery next Tuesday and I’m worried. I don’t know why but I’m worried. I had it done on my other eye a few years ago and it went fine, but I’m worried this time.”

Rosa’s right eye was long overdue for the surgery, it looked like a pane of opaque glass, cloudy and thick, it was the first thing one noticed about Rosa’s physical appearance. She had probably been living with this condition for years.

Lemuel looked at Rosa and stretching out his two hands said, “Here, give me your hand and let’s pray.” She reached her hand across the counter and Lemuel prayed aloud for her – it was a holy moment between Rosa and Lemuel, two people who had been strangers five minutes before.

After the prayer Lemuel picked up his bag with Duke’s, said, “God bless you,” to Rosa, and headed out the door. Rosa called after him, “What’s your name?”

“Lemuel” was the reply.

The only thing better than a mater and sliced white bread and Duke’s Mayonnaise is when you add prayer – that’s a recipe hard to beat.

Lemuel had a business meeting a while later, prior to the meeting getting started he got to share about Rosa with a man he just met. Then a lady arrived to participate in the meeting who Lemuel did not know would be there, he was delighted to see her for it had been at least two years since they last met – she and Lemuel had prayed together before. She and Lemuel both smiled when they saw each other and embraced – the other meeting participants looking on and perhaps wondering, “How do they know each other?”

There is nothing quite like Duke’s mayonnaise. And…there is nothing quite like praying for and with others. If we can spread Duke’s on our sliced white bread, and spread the news about Duke’s to others…surely we can also spread care and concern and prayer in our daily lives. 

Lemuel and Rosa and Duke’s Mayonnaise – Part 3

Lemuel lifted a jar of sugar-free Duke’s Mayonnaise off the shelf and headed to the checkout area. The cashier at the first register had no customers so he walked up to her station, placed his bodacious Duke’s Mayonnaise on the counter, and as he was saying “Hi, how are you today?” he saw by her name tag that her name was Rosa.

You don’t meet a lot of ladies named Rosa today. When I think of the name Rosa I think of two Rosas, one is a lady I knew way back when who was the mother of my father, the other was Rosa Parks, who on December 1, 1955 refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, AL. I need to meet Lemuel’s Rosa so I can make the acquaintance of a third Rosa.

My grandmother was born in 1897, which is to confirm that she entered this world before I did. She passed away in 1974. That seems like a long time to live when you go from one century into another; but hey, look at me (and maybe you) – born in the 20^th century and likely to leave here in the 21^st century – if I make it until the 22^nd century I sure hope they fully fund Social Security. One day a grandchild or great-grandchild may be writing the same thing about me – assuming that in the future folks can write coherent sentences; I believe Social Security has a better chance of surviving than literacy.

Rosa Anderson married Caskie Withers (born 1888) in 1912; that means, as I cypher it, that she was 15 years old – that seems awfully young, but that’s what the genealogy says. She and Caskie had their first child, Jean, in 1914. Caskie was in WWI, came home and died of pneumonia on December 30, 1929. 1929 was not a very good year for the country or for Grandmother Withers – she was pregnant with her last child, Aunt Christine, who was born in February 1930.  My daddy was born in 1925, Uncle John in 1927, Uncle Cleve in 1925, there was a baby James who died in 1924, and there were more who were born earlier. I guess in those days having babies at home wasn’t expensive like having them in the hospital. But seriously, it must have been a terrible thing when Rosa lost Caskie – the loss of her husband was bad enough, but think about all the little ones. I wish I really knew her story, but I don’t. When you get on in life you wish that you’d listened and asked questions when you were young and stupid – and when you get older and want to ask questions there is no one to ask.

I didn’t see much of Grandmother Withers growing up. She lived in Northern Virginia and we lived in Maryland. This was before beltways and superhighways and getting from “here to there” wasn’t always as easy as it is today. I know my Daddy went to live with Aunt Jean in D.C. before he went into the Navy in WWII. At some point Grandmother moved up to Northern Virginia from Nelson County, and all of her children except Christine lived in the Northern Virginia – D.C. area. Nelson County, where both of my grandparents were born, is where a few of my ancestors with various last names are from; it is also the backdrop for the “Waltons” in case you didn’t know – I think my family probably knew the Baldwin sisters.

I admire Rosa Parks, the woman had courage. Yes, I know she said she was just tired and wasn’t going to move, but the woman had courage. Mrs. Parks said, “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” We live in a world where no one can make up his mind and where no one knows what must be done – we live in a world of moral cowards, we need Rosa Parks to come back and lead us.

Back to our Mizz Rosa. Lemuel says, “We’re having BLTs tonight and I need to get me some Duke’s Mayonnaise. You can’t have a BLT without Duke’s and the missus won’t let me in the door without it.”

Mizz Rosa, a lady in her mid - to late 70s, smiled at Lemuel and said, “That is the truth, you gotta have Duke’s. I remember I once worked in an office where they didn’t know anything about tomato sandwiches, and they sure didn’t know noth’n about Duke’s. One day I went out to a roadside produce stand and got me some tomatoes, then I went to the store and got me some sliced white bread and Duke’s. I went back to the office and started to make me a mater sandwich. Everyone was looking at me not knowing what I was doing.

“ “What are you doing?” they was asking. I said, “I’m making a tomato sandwich with Duke’s mayonnaise.” They ‘aint’ never seen a tomato sandwich…can you believe that? Never seen such a thing...can you believe that? O my goodness. Well, I fixed my sandwich and was a eat’n it when I looked and one of them had two slices of bread out and was cutting one of my tomatoes and putting my Duke’s on the bread and then commenced to eat’n…eat’n my Dukes, my tomatoes, my sliced white bread. And then another started, and then another, and don’t you know that before it was over I didn’t have one tomato left.” 

As I listened to Lemuel’s story I couldn’t help but admire Mizz Rosa spreading culture in her workplace, whether she intended to or not. It sounds like she was gracious about it, which one would expect with a name like Rosa. I think the best way to win friends and influence people is with Duke’s Mayonnaise and some blues music along with bluegrass. Maybe if we dropped Duke’s Mayonnaise on folks out yonder in the Middle East along with blues and bluegrass and Hanover maters and sliced white bread they’d all get along a mite better. Don’t laugh, people with full stomachs tend to be more contented that folks looking for their next meal.  Come to think of it this program might work in our own country with folks a’be’n mean to one another and a’hurt’n one another – might even send some Duke’s up to Washington City in the District of Columbia.

As Lemuel and Mizz Rosa kept talking, with Mizz Rosa ringing up the mayonnaise and taking Lemuel’s money, and putting that sugar-free southern treasure in a bag Lemuel looked at Mizz Rosa and asked….

To be continued…

An Old Man On A Bench

As I was walking down a sidewalk, heading into a Kroger, I saw an old man sitting on a bench. He had a red and blue plaid newsboy cap on and his face was chiseled with decades of time. If his face were a phonograph record it would play the blues.

The bench once had advertising painted on it, but the peeling green paint on its slats made it indiscernible. The multicolor lettering was long gone, even its outline was now lost  - only flakes of paint here and there bore testimony to soap, or soda, or aspirin; the purchase of which promised to make life better - the bench was weathered and warped, the old man was weathered and bent.

His eyes saw me, he was aware of what was immediately surrounding him – but he was looking at something else, something I couldn’t see – his soul was looking through his eyes, beyond what I and other passersby could see. I had a sense that he was there and yet wasn’t there. I had a sense that I was intruding.

Reverently I said, “Good afternoon.”

He looked at me, through me, beyond me, and replied:

“When I die I will fly

And when I fly I will soar.

When I soar it will be above this old earth

And my troubles will be far below.”

I don’t think he was actually talking to me, I was just a witness in the sacred place of the old man, for I don’t think he was simply sitting on a bench; the bench was just a prop, a prop for a tired old soul in the tired old body of a tired old man.

2 Corinthians 5:1-5.