Good morning everyone and welcome once more to Miz Judi's Kitchen. We hope all is well with each and every one of you! Thank you for stopping by today.
"Red" and One of Life's Lessons:
I'm going to tell ya'll a little story this morning that Deb and I talked about just yesterday. It involves our youngest son Mark, the very same who broke all his Granny's coke bottles in an earlier story of Deb's, and a child's inquisitiveness. You think they're kinda' half listening, but in fact they have you tuned in! That is unless it's chores.
Mark and his brother Josh are actually my stepsons, Deb's by a previous marriage, although Deb and I have been together 25 years or better. Both consider me their Dad, and I consider both as my sons. Mark was 4 when I first met him, and both he and his brother have always called me Dub. This plays a small role in what I'm going to tell you today. Also when he was younger he had red hair, not deep red, just a red tint, and today it's actually more brown than anything. This being the case I always have, and still do, call him "Red."
Red in reality was one of those children, not much different than myself actually, although we don't let Red in on that fact, who always had to "push your button." Even if he knew it would cost him, his tail mostly, he'd just gone on and pushed the button. It was crazy. Let me say this though, Red and his brother both turned into fine upstanding men, and are good fathers to boot. Red oversees and runs the field operations of our business, and again, does one heck of a job.
Anyway with Red being a "button pusher" as a child, he was always into something. He stayed in trouble, nothing serious, and all "kid things" very similar to a "Dennis the Menace." Mostly trivial, BUT CONSTANT!!
One evening Red and I were talking, Deb was at work and I'm guessing he was 5-6 tops, and as usual being his normal inquisitive self. That afternoon we'd passed a homeless man, and Red was looking at him pretty hard, never saying anything, but somewhere off in his own thoughts.
As I said, he and I were talking later that evening and he got to asking questions like, who was he? Why doesn't he have a home? Can't he find work, all types of questions in this regard. I explained that people sometimes get down on their luck, even some prefer this type of lifestyle. He just sat there taking all this in.
I then explained, and believe this quite frankly, that there are times when God tests you to see the goodness in your own heart. I told him take that man we've been sitting here talking about. Who's to say, this man wasn't put here among us on earth and is really one of God's angels testing us on our faith and goodness, to see if we would indeed help a "brother" in a time of dire need. I said, you always need to remember this because by refusing, you may be going against God's Will.
Well, it wasn't but a day or two, and Red and I had run down to the grocery store to pick up some meat to have for supper that night. Let me tell you too, back then times were hard and we really were having to stretch a dollar to get by.
While I'm standing at the counter looking at the meat, sure enough a man who obviously was down on his luck walks up to me and says, "Sir could you spare a couple dollars so I can get something to eat?"
I look up, smelling alcohol on his breath, and it was obvious his intentions after bumming my money, but before I could utter a word, I looked down and Red was eyeing me intently, "locked on" you might say. It immediately dawned on me, that he was focused on our God's angels talk and was seeing my reaction to this man, knowing after our conversation this could be...one of God's angels! I was in a spot, and little Red was a holding me accountable! Man, I sure had to be careful how this got handled now!
I turned back to the man and told him, "Here's four dollars. I want you to buy a pack of bologna and get a loaf of bread. That'll give you three to four meals, and don't let me catch ya' buying beer with this money!" He then assured me he'd get the food and wouldn't buy beer, thanking me profusely while walking off.
Red after taking this all in, was looking at me proudly, you could just see it in his face, ole Dub had lived up to his statement and had indeed acted correctly in regards to the man possibly being one of God's angels. I had acted just as I'd professed you should, through the goodness of your heart.
Looking back down at the meat, actually feeling good I'd passed Red's test of "practicing what you preach," I continued looking for some meat maybe being on sale. I couldn't have spent over a minute or two tops, and suddenly I heard little Red's voice hollering, "Dub! Dub, he's a buyin' beer! Dub, he's got some beer in his hands! He didn't get any bread...he's buyin' beer!"
That little scoundrel had slipped off from me, followed that man, making sure he'd done what I'd told him to do...buy food, NOT BEER! He was standing all the way across the store by an end-cap, hollering to beat the band. People were trying to figure out what in the world he was hollering about, and beginning to look at us strangely. I hollered for him to get his little red-headed tail back down to where I was at, grabbed some meat, checked out, and to the house we headed!
The whole time checking out and all the way home, him steady asking me, "Why did he do that? He said he was hungry, but he bought beer! You told him not to buy beer! Why, why, why, why, and why??" Dad-gum give it a rest, Red, I said, and said, and said again...after supper we'll sit down and talk about it, but let's just get home!
Later on that night we did sit and talk. I explained, best I could at the time to a youngun', that ya' can't always take people at face value, and in order for people to be helped, they first have to be willing to help themselves. If they're not willing to take that first step, helping themselves, then there's no possible way anyone else can! It won't happen.
This story is true, and provided me with ammunition to share with Red that you control your own destiny, not someone else's. If you want to succeed badly enough you can, but just as you can, you can fail just as easily. You choose your own path and stick to your guns! Your word is your bond, and obviously the man in this story's word meant nothing to him, thus look at how he lived...like a bum!
It's the same story over and over, nothing ever changes...life is what you make it!
‘Ridin Out The Recession With Dub and Deb in “Miz Judi’s Kitchen’!
Note to Readers: There are a few things that Dub doesn’t know but one thing he does know is that the word ‘Riding’ (as in Riding Out the Recession) is spelled with a ‘g’ at the end. But Dub not only walks the walk, but speaks like he is: down home, true blue, and plain speakin’ country folk.
Dub and Deb are both native Floridians, live in Central Florida, and run a small business as well. They have five children, and seven grandchildren.
Both love to cook, love to laugh, grow a garden, and generally try to “aggravate” most anyone around them basically…all in good fun, of course!
