In these "Rock n' roll" days of high living-- cell
phones, fast foods, and hooking up-- most young people think you are crazy when you
speak about the great depression-- which was a reality to old folks of my
generation... it was just 80 years ago.
I still remember my father re-soling our shoes-- cutting the
soles from a sheet of leather, using a powerful/ sticky substance. At least we could buy the materials. Black
children and their parents wore shoes inserted with cardboard/ old tire rubber.
Until their deaths, many of my old uncles-- and other old
men in the community-- wore shoes (brogans) which had been sliced, to make them
wearable with their bunions. Men and women of that generation, wearing their often-too-small
shoes, were afflicted with foot problems from which they could never recover.
I still remember one of my patients, a hard-working black
woman, Ms. Daisy Thompson, talking with me on the condition of her parents'
feet. She said, " Doctor, my 'feets' have got to take me a long way. I do
without other things to have good shoes."
This writer still remembers one African (gorilla )safari
where I was in the bush in Zaire
photographing gorillas protected by African Pygmys. These men had never worn
shoes. Their feet looked more like animal hooves than human feet. In New Guinea,
this traveler saw men walk across hot coals with bare feet. I saw people
walking bare footed on ice slopes in Bhutan. And, as I have described in
other articles, I will never forget the young bare-foot children on the border
between Afghanistan and Pakistan--
their fathers and mothers carrying all their worldly possession in bags over
their shoulders.
In a world of the "haves" and the "have-nots,"
where poor people experience pain just as much as the elitist, I have never
been able to understand those who bring pain on themselves through bad habits,
addictions, etc.
In other articles I have described the many years at my "pied
d' terre" in Manhattan--
where I lived some weeks each year. Back then (40 years ago) the drug culture
was just getting started. One heroine addict, attempting to break himself from
buying on the street, chained an arm to a radiator in his apartment. However, when
the overwhelming, craving appetite came over him, his other hand disconnected
the radiator, and here he was on the street buying, attached to a radiator. This
is a supreme callus on the brain. Much more horrendous than one on the foot or
cancer on any other part of the body.
So it is with addictions to cigarettes, sexual activity, and
the greatest addictive agent of all, the liquor bottle. The worst experiences
of my life were seeing alcoholics totally enslaved by "demon rum."
Every slave of alcohol started with the first drink. Every slave of tobacco,
the first cigarette. We live in a country where 50% of the people are
diabetics, every cancer feeding on sugar.
Ancient pagans threw Christians to the lions. Now, a world
of worldly religionists-- church members more interested in the world flesh
devil... very interested in the activities of their unsaved friends-- more
interested in the cause and effect of politics and their own economics than the
cause of Christ. Real Christians, and the church, thrown to the socialized
preachers and their unsaved poachers. The tares have taken over the pews and
the pulpit does not wish to offend them-- particularly, if they are community
socialites, able to make large contributions (of course as a tax write off.) One
thing we should all learn from that great California preacher, Dr. Gene Scott and his
great University Cathedral is as he said, "If you give in order to get a
tax write off, you have already gotten your reward." God loves a cheerful
giver. (2
Corinthians 9:7) He also said,
"Don't ask this church to give you any type of documentation for you to
give to the government about what you 'supposedly' gave to God." Another
thing we might learn from Dr. Scott in this day of children misbehaving in the
sanctuary, children in the university cathedral sat with their parents until
they were married. He did not allow any misbehavior of any type. He would stop
in the middle of a sermon and ask an usher to escort the offender to the door. If
people started leaving while the invitation was given at the end of the
service, the great preacher, Dr. R.G. Lee of Bellevue Baptist-- a church with
thousands of members, where this writer was active for many years-- would say,
"Stare them down! We work the entire week for this time of the week, and
they are in a hurry to get to a cafeteria." Lives are effected by calluses
at the church house, school house, most certainly at the courthouse, and even
at your house.
Just as a child's vision pattern is determined by age five,
so a child's future character is established by age six. Children need a father
and mother, boys need a father to teach them how a man should act, treat a
woman. Boys need the tenderness of a mother, what to look for in a wife and
girls should certainly know how a man is supposed to treat a woman. Hollywood and the
internet have brought calluses onto the minds of young people. They willingly
accept the gay agenda promotions of same-sex marriage, the euthanasia of the
unborn, and old people who are no longer attractive and take up so much of the
country's resources. The fastest growing segment, those 85 and above, use more
healthcare resources than all others combined. Remember, the "old
folks" planted the flowers which you are picking; they bare and wear the
calluses of leaving to you advantages which you enjoy.
Calluses show hard work. This writer always enjoyed shaking
the callused hands of a working person. I had the undertaker place my hand on
my parents' hands in their casket. Neither ever had a manicure, only knew the
value of hard work, leadership, and caring for others.
