Oh, What a Feeling
“For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.” Ecclesiastes 4:10 KJV
It’s strange how some of the things we remember from the past are sometimes thought better of in the future. We hear, and use, the term, “the good old days,” but if we really think about it they were far from that description. Where we stand, at this very moment, helps us realize there was a purpose for those rough times.
I was thinking back to the days when I was a newspaper boy. There were many very fond memories from those days. Even the rough times have turned into great stories of conquest. If imagination could become reality, and I could go back to them, I would probably rather not go.
One of the stories I remember from those days was the hard work it was. We literally had to get the papers out no matter what the weather conditions were. Once, there was a huge winter storm that hit our area. My bundles of papers were piled in front of the garage door. I was expected to get them to the neighbors who might possibly die if they did not have their paper on that day.
The reason I remember one snow storm in particular is, that it not only left several inches of snow on the ground, it also coated the streets with 3-4 inches of ice. Riding my bike on the slick surface was impossible. My customers were some distance from my house, so I could not carry all those papers in my bag. That would require several long trips back to the house to get more papers.
So I loaded up all my newspapers on my bike which had several baskets on it. I then pushed, not rode, my bike to deliver my papers. All the newspapers got delivered.
Strange, today I don’t remember how cold it was. The fatigue of the journey escapes me. Whether anyone commented on my devotion, I do not remember. What I remember is that I had a task to do and I overcame all the obstacles that stood in the way of preventing that from happening.
Another story I remember is when one of my friends became a newspaper carrier of a rival newspaper. He was our Preacher’s son. I don’t think he lasted too long doing it. Some of his territory crossed over into my territory.
Early one morning I was finishing my paper route. It was a Saturday. On some Saturdays, when I finished delivering my papers, my Dad would take me to the donut shop and I would buy a couple dozen donuts for the family. After all, what’s the sense in working real hard if you don’t take time to celebrate those efforts every once in a while.
Approaching the last block, I could almost taste those donuts. There, on the corner, was someone standing next to a bike. As I got nearer I realized it was the Pastor’s son. I think he had been standing there for quite a while.
Wondering why he was standing there, looking so lonely, I asked him why he was just standing there. He pointed to a dog that was watching him about a half a block away.
When you are a paperboy for any length of time, you will eventually realize that public enemy number one to a paperboy is a dog. I was bitten three or four times and chased many more by those mighty protectors. Without fail, every time I was bitten, I always heard the same thing: “He’s never bitten anyone before.” Lucky me.
Some dogs have ferocious barks. Others just have yappy, annoying barks. You eventually learn to have a confident growl yourself and in most cases, but not all, the dog will usually back down. This tactic usually can’t be deployed when little Rover is next to its owner, though. They don’t look at cute Rover as public enemy number one. To them, Rover is one of their children.
Back to my friend standing on the corner searching for answers to his dilemma. I told him I would chase the dog away so he could deliver his papers. So I chased the dog down the street. The young boy quickly delivered his papers, always keeping his eyes on where the dog was. Then he quickly exited the scene.
Since the street this happened on was the street right behind our house, my Dad saw the whole situation unfold. He said, “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a newspaper boy chase a dog.”
Looking over Presidential history, often a President comes to mind when a topic is brought up. When you think of a bachelor President, James Buchanan is probably who comes to mind. Yet, Grover Cleveland was also a bachelor when he became President. Cleveland just got married while he was President.
When you think of bearded Presidents, the first thought that probably crosses your mind is Abraham Lincoln. But Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison all had beards.
When you think of Founding Fathers who became President, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson might come to mind. But John Adams, James Madison, and James Monroe, for some, are in this group of Founding Fathers.
There are a few Presidents that you can shout one word and you instantly think of more than one President. For example, if you shout “Virginia” you might think George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Woodrow Wilson, or even Bill Clinton (his Mom’s name was Virginia). All but the last one was born in Virginia.
This President would break that one word trend. If someone would say this one word, “Boom!” Your attention would immediately turn in his direction. I’m sure he often wished this word was wiped out of our political lexicon.
It was a June day in Washington DC. It was an election year. Like many other pre-election days in Washington DC, I’m sure there was a lot of name calling on both sides of the aisle. Since most people never doubted the sitting President was going to be reelected, it was a little calmer than most Presidential elections. Still, no one wants to take a chance because you really never truly know until after the polls close who is actually going to win.
It was late at night when Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James W. McCord Jr., Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis, and Alfred C. Baldwin III gathered together to change forever how we view politics. Quite honestly, I don’t think they had a clue of the impact they were making. Although many theories exist, I’m not sure anyone is positively sure why they were there in the first place.
Baldwin would act as the lookout for the group. He would sit in a room across the street at the Howard Johnson’s hotel in room 419. Misfortune happened when he became momentary distracted watching the TV. The five others would pay the price for that distraction.
The six of them seemed to work well together. This wasn’t their first time doing this. Almost three weeks earlier they thought they had successfully completed the task. They soon realized they hadn’t. Around midnight, on this June day, they returned to the unfinished business.
Someone wanted to know something, and it was their job to help find out that information. From the inside someone put tape over the door lock. This way the door could look like it was closed and locked, but they could return later and basically just walk right in.
A security guard noticed the tape on the door and removed it. He really didn’t think much of it. This might be what some of the employees did so they wouldn’t have to unlock the door every time they reentered, if they had to make several trips. Somehow the tape got put back on the door, because that is how the five were able to get in so easily.
One of the theories floating at the time had to do with Cuba nationals. We were on very unfriendly terms with Cuba at the time. Using that as the theory’s basis, supporters of this theory would state they were tapping the phone lines of the big wigs in the office to find out if they were secretly supporting Cuban radical groups. The reason for the return trip was because they forgot to tap the phone of one of the prime suspects.
Another theory was that they were looking for some juicy dirt on some candidates. After all, it was an election year. Let’s just say, if a candidate was known to frequent a place of ill repute, and if that information came out just before the election, that candidate’s chances of being elected would go down sharply. A possibility of that theory is that they got some juicy information from one of the phone-tappings and now they had to return to make repairs on that bug.
Who knows? What we do know is that some plainclothes officers were on that floor routinely checking the offices. With Baldwin distracted, the five were caught and arrested. To most, it looked like a basic burglary, with five very bad burglars performing it.
The story got interesting when it was revealed that four of the five “burglars” were actually Cuban freedom fighters. If the story just stopped there, it wouldn’t change history, though.
It was soon discovered that the group was actually being paid to perform the task. There had been a $25,000 cashier’s check deposited into US and Mexican bank accounts for one of the burglars. The source of the cashier’s check was even more puzzling. An overzealous candidate, looking for some dirt on some opponent, wasn’t the source. No Cuban national group wrote the check.
The source of the check came from the most unusual source: The Committee to Reelect the President. Funds for the check had been legally obtained, but is was where they were directed that was illegal.
Here is where the story really gets interesting. If some overzealous campaign worker was just “trying too hard” to help the victory along, then that worker might have just been fired and no one would have thought any more about it. But that’s not what happened.
The Bible isn’t just a book with lots of stories about old people. There are some stories with relatively young parties being the focus. There is baby Moses being set in a basket and floating down the river to be saved from near certain death. You have Hanna praying for a son and promising God she will return her son Him to her once he is weaned. It’s the story of young Samuel.
Then you have young David throwing his rock at a giant. Who can forget the little boy who brought his lunch to Jesus, who divided it up to feed a crowd of thousands? Every Christmas we remember our little Savior’s birth.
But when you think of those who are young in the Bible it is highly unlikely you are going to think of him. Like the little boy who gives his lunch to Jesus, he is nameless. For our sake, let’s just call him Dakota.
Dakota had a sad childhood. While his friends could run and play, Dakota was relegated to just standing around watching. It must have been so lonely just standing around while everyone else was playing.
As Dakota grew older, yet he was still just considered a child, his friends were given tiny chores. Since they weren’t all grown up, these chores were often presented as fun task. No, not for Dakota. He seemed destined just to stand around all his life.
In the run-up to the election of 1972, five men broke into the Watergate Complex in Washington DC. They may have never been caught if the lookout, Alfred Baldwin, had not gotten distracted by the TV. He could have abandoned the project and they could have tried it again another day. Maybe he was just a little overconfident because they had successfully tapped the phones of executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairman, Robert Spencer Oliver, about three weeks before. Some repairs were needed on that bug.
During the investigation, E. Howard Hunt’s name was in the address book of one of the burglars. Hunt had worked in the past for the CIA. He was involved in helping form a group of Cubans that could replace Cuban leader Fidel Castro when President Kennedy successfully overthrew that government. The disastrous Bay of Pigs event ended our attempts to overthrow Castro. Hunt was none too pleased with these developments.
With four Cuban nationals being involved in the break-in and Hunt’s disappointment with Kennedy giving up on Cuba, it would make sense that the Cuban tie would be strong. Problem was, Hunt, along with G. Gordon Liddy, was hired by the Nixon administration to stop the leaks that were coming from White House Sources. Hunt and Liddy became known as the “White House Plumbers.” Shortly after the break in, Hunt was also tied to the payments to the Cuban nationals.
Again, if Hunt was just an overzealous campaign worker, when the administration found out about the illegal activity, they could have fired him. Then the whole story might have just gone away. That’s not what happened.
Instead, a cover-up was ordered. Slowly, the cover-up was discovered. Once again, when it was found out, and if those involved would have been fired, the whole story might have just gone away. That didn’t happen either.
More cover-ups were attempted. Then one of the main defenses became that the press was unjustly picking on the President and the administration. It became a game of “he said – she said.” Then a new discovery was found.
It was discovered that the President, Richard Nixon, had secretly recorded his White House conservations. Then the battle began for the release of some of those tapes that pertained to the subject. The President refused to turn them over. He lost that right when it was taken up by the Supreme Court.
The tapes were turned over to the Congressional committee investigating the events. Investigators discovered that one of the tapes had 18-1/2 minutes erased on it. Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, claimed it was a mistake. We will never know.
Then the famous “Smoking Gun” tape was released. The tape happened shortly after the Watergate events. It clearly showed Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, discussing how they could get the FBI to stop the Watergate investigation.
Nixon now knew his time was up. He resigned so he wouldn’t be thrown out of office by a near certain impeachment conviction. The disgrace of resignation was even more than Nixon thought he could handle. Shortly after his resignation he would enter a hospital and his recovery looked bleak.
No one wanted to have anything to do with Nixon. Nixon felt so alone. Was life worth going on if this was the life he was left to live? The stress probably didn’t help his condition.
One day Dakota was just standing around. He probably thought it was going to be a day just like any other day. He had grown used to just standing around. No one seemed to even notice his existence. This day would be different.
On this day, someone just walked right up to Dakota. This complete stranger was going to take him away from the place he always called home. “Finally,” he must have thought, “someone is here to rescue me.” But before he could get away, someone came running out the house shouting, “Hey! Hey! What are you doing? He’s mine!”
The Bible tells the story of a young, unridden donkey. In our story we have called him Dakota. Tied to a post, the donkey was just standing there minding his own business. A donkey’s purpose, in those times, was to be ridden on. This donkey probably felt all alone. All his other donkey friends had been ridden on before. “Why hadn’t he been ridden on?” must have been his thought.
For all the donkey’s loneliness and waiting, he would become one of the most famous donkeys in history. You see, his first passenger was none other than Jesus Himself. He would be personally responsible for taking Jesus on his most important mission, His mission to save us all.
Jesus sent some of his Disciples to get this donkey. He didn’t send his Disciples to the donkey store to get the best donkey in town. Having a donkey that was easy to ride was not the point of this selection. In fact, since no one had ridden this donkey before, no one really knew for sure if the donkey was even up to the task. Jesus did.
When the disciples arrived to get the donkey, its owner ran out questioning their motives. Just like Jesus told His Disciples, once they mentioned the Master wanted the donkey, the owner stops his questioning and lets the donkey go.
Imagine the donkey’s pride when Jesus hops on his back and he is paraded down that crowded street on that Palm Sunday. Cheering fans and palm branches lined his path. None of his donkey friends had ever experienced such a thrill. Now the lonely donkey understood the purpose for his loneliness. He was being saved for God’s purpose.
When you hear the word “Watergate,” your first thought is probably Richard Nixon. Today, anytime there is corruption relating to elections or government cover up, there is always a “gate” added to the end of the topic. When you add “gate” to the end of anything it is never a compliment. For all of Richard Nixon’s accomplishments, he will forever be attached to the Watergate scandal.
The loneliness Richard Nixon felt almost cost him his life. But Nixon would overcome that loneliness and would help other Presidents when they would come into very rough foreign policy dilemmas. Nixon, despite his Watergate scandal, was one of the best foreign policy Presidents. Nixon’s loneliness, even though it was self-caused, led him to become a much more humble person.
The young paperboy’s loneliness was caused by conditions beyond his control. His dilemma was more than he could handle. It took someone else to help lift him out of his loneliness. With that help he was able to be productive again.
A young donkey’s purpose was to be ridden. Without a purpose, life really didn’t seem to be worth the effort. Loneliness could have been the result. But God had a purpose that was worth waiting for. The donkey’s time was not God’s time.
Loneliness is one of the worst emotions. Our whole world seems to serve no purpose if we have to go through it alone. We question why it is in our lives. Anger and depression often follow. But God is bigger than our loneliness and often there is a much bigger reason than we can imagine for its existence.
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, Please comfort me in the times of my loneliness. Please help me to understand that it will not last forever and there is usually a purpose for feeling lonely. Please help me to help others who may be going through the lonely feeling. Amen.
