The summer of 1961 we heard the Presbyterians were gonna send us a missionary. Seems like some folks up north had decided the poor people of Kentucky needed a new kind of religion. Our preacher Brother Charles had heard about it and was mad as an old banty rooster struttin’ in the yard, shoutin’ from the pulpit that we holiness people knew how to gain salvation. Wasn’t a Presbyterian Church closer than 40 miles’I think the preacher was worryin’ they were tryin’ to extend their territory.
That very next day I was standin’ with Cindy Lee Watkins in front a Jamison’s Store. First day a school only two weeks away and we were lookin’ at the pleated skirts Mrs. Jamison was hangin’ up. Watchin’ in the winda, I saw this shiny black and white ‘56 Ford turn onto Main Street. With only a year between my brother B.J. and me, I knew ever year and model a car on the road’ever time we went up to see Sissie and Alden and the kids in Cincinnati, we bout drove our folks crazy, shoutin’ out the names and years a cars, seein’ who could get the most.
“Whooee,” said Cindy Lee. “Who is that?” And she was already fluffin’ her blond hair up off her neck, checkin’ her lipstick in the reflection in the glass, tuggin’ down her t-shirt.
“I think we got ourselves a Presbyterian,” I giggled, “but I sure didn’t figure he’d be that cute.”
Just then the car pulled over and the driver leaned out the winda, his hair shinin’ black in the sun, his teeth showin’ in a big white smile. Looked like he wasn’t much older than us. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey back,” we said, right at the same time.
“You girls live around here?” he asked in a funny accent, the words cut off and sharp-soundin’.
“Yeah,” I said, hopin’ my face didn’t look as red as it felt.
“Can you tell me how to get to the Courthouse?”
“Be better if we showed ya,” said Cindy Lee, and she blinked her eyes twice, real slow, and I hit her hard with my elbow, hardly believin’ she had the nerve. We were only 14, neither of us even been on a car date.
The stranger laughed and said, “Get in, then.” Course Cindy Lee held the door open for me and waved me into the backseat. Then flouncin’ like Miss America herself, she sits in front. Before drivin’ away, the driver held out his hand, said, “My name’s Jackson Newman! Glad to meet you.”
Easy to tell Jackson Newman came from moneyed people! Told us he went to some fancy college to study religion. Professors filled his head with all these crazy ideas! Jackson wanted to change the world! Gave it a pretty good try, too! He surely did that!
Started a community center in the old Elks Hall that hadn’t been used since before I was born. Spent a week cleanin’ and patchin’ and paintin’. Cindy Lee and me were helpin’ and pretty soon, five or six more girls hangin’ around! He was the handsomest man. After Jackson put up the basketball hoop out back, Jimmy Boardman and Robert Johnson come down, brought the whole team from Mountainview High with ‘em.
'Fore long, there was a bunch a folks helpin’ at the Center. Robert Johnson’s mama set to organizin’ the Food Bank Jackson had thought up. None a us had any money, but everybody give a quart or two a garden truck. The boys had put up some shelves and Mrs. Johnson put the canned goods in rows’looked pretty with all the peaches and beets and green beans, quart jars on the bottom shelves, pint jars higher up.
Jackson brought in some old sewing machines and Mrs. Porterfield started makin’ quilts. Her neighbor Ruthie Winston come, too. Had a bunch a flannel scraps, sewin’ up tiny baby shirts and gowns for the Hampton girl’expectin’ by Christmas and her husband out a work. By Thanksgiving there was a crowd a ladies near ever day, sewin’ and crochetin’ and knittin’, in a circle round the old woodstove. Bout 9 o’clock, Jackson would come in and read a scripture and they’d talk about it.
We were all surprised when Jackson showed up that first Sunday at Free Will Methodist Church. I can still hear him singin’ right behind me in choir’had the sweetest tenor voice. First Sunday he come, Brother Charles preached how Jesus had gone up to heaven and we was to wait here until the Second Coming. “Then all things will be set right!” shouted Brother Charles. “Our suffering on this earth prepares us for that time when we shall be carried up and reunited with our Lord.”
Mama had invited Brother Charles and Jackson for Sunday dinner. Daddy and the two church men sat on the porch fannin’ themselves in the heat. I helped Mama set out the platter of fried chicken and a bowl piled high with mashed potatoes swimmin’ in butter. I remember Mama tuckin’ in the curls that had come down from her hair, wipin’ her hands on her apron, and steppin’ to the door and sayin’, “Come on in! Everythin’s ready.”
Brother Charles said grace, then hardly waited til the amen fore he said to Jackson, “So, young friend! When do you think the Second Coming will be? And are you ready for it? Is your soul right with God?”
Jackson waited quite a while to answer, lookin’ down at his plate fore he spoke. “Brother Charles,” he said, “I don’t know about the Second Coming! what I do know is that until then, we’ve got to live as if it had already happened; not endure suffering but be with those who suffer.”
“Son, unless you have made yourself right with God, when Jesus comes, you’ll be left behind in all manner of torment.”
“Sir, I believe Jesus is already in our midst” unless we treat each other like the Savior here and now, then we’re not being faithful to Jesus’ message.”
Brother Charles’ face was gettin’ redder by the minute and looked like he was bout to choke on his chicken.
“Boy! You are steppin’ close to blasphemy! You had better read your Bible and do a lotta prayin’! And learn to respect your elders while you’re at it,” snapped Brother Charles, wipin’ his face with his napkin.
Dinner was real quiet after that, nobody sayin’ much of anythin’ ‘til we all started admirin’ Mama’s blackberry cobbler. Jackson left soon as he’d helped with the dishes, only stopped to shake hands with Daddy. Brother Charles stood up and went to the other end a the porch til Jackson had gone down the path.
The days passed. Jackson just kept workin’. Had a program for kids after school; they come and learned scripture verses, played games, and ate graham crackers. At Christmas, a truck come in to the Center, loaded with frozen turkeys and toys and such. We never knew where they come from, but ever family in town got something extra that year.
The night before New Year’s Eve, not much past midnight, the wail a the siren on top a the high school sounded. I remember runnin’ out to the porch, bare feet cold as ice, everythin lookin’ white under a new snow. Oscar Ransom stopped in his old Chevy truck, yellin’ for Daddy to come on. “Brother Charles place is burnin’! Chimey fire started it.” Daddy and my brother B.J. jumped in the back and they roared off, tailights gettin’ smaller and smaller.
Mama and me got dressed and grabbed up quilts and blankets. She hated to drive in the snow, but Mama done it that night, slippin’ from one side a the road to the other, all the way down the mountain. When we got there, some men was holdin’ the preacher. He was fightin’ them, tryin’ to get away, screamin’ the words of a prayer, “Oh, Sweet Jesus, save my Dorothea.” Somehow in all that smoke, they’d lost hold of each other and she was still in the house, the flames lickin’ at the sky.
That’s when I saw Jackson; he grabbed a quilt from Mama and held it in the water gushin’ from the firetruck hose. Fore anyone could grab ‘im, he’d run inside. I don’t think there was one of us there who thought he’d make it out, but he did, carryin’ Dorothea Rogers, lookin’ like she was dead. That wet quilt wrapped around her was so hot it was smokin’ and when I saw Jackson’s face, the skin hangin’ in strips, my stomach twisted funny-like. Jackson sunk to the ground and Brother Charles and Mama rushed over. When they lifted Mrs. Rogers from his arms, Jackson slumped over and we could see the fire had burned his jacket clean through to his back.
Dorothea come out of it with bad lungs, but even so, she’s the oldest person livin’ at Sunshine Meadows home; outlived her husband. Jackson hung on for eleven days in the burn unit up to Lexington General. His folks flew in from New York; seemed like real good people. They stayed for the memorial service up to the high school gym, crowd so big, over two hundred folks stood in the snow listenin’ to it on loudspeakers.
Brother Charles did the service, tears runnin’ down his face the whole time. He quoted that same scripture, about how Jesus had ascended to heaven, leavin’ his disciples behind, starin’ up to heaven.
“Last Friday, in the early hours of the mornin’ Jackson Newman ascended to heaven, gone to be with his Lord. Like the disciples on that long ago day, we are left behind, left with missin’ him, with wonderin’ why. Some of us here this mornin’ are confused, some may be angry.
“But we haven’t got time to stand around, lookin’ to the heavens. We haven’t got time to wallow in our grief. As a wise young man told me, Jesus is already in our midst; unless we treat each other like the Savior here and now, then we’re not bein’ faithful to Jesus’ message. Friends, the Lord left us a mighty work to continue: the salvation and redemption of the world. Let’s get to it.”
After that, seemed like everybody in the holler come to sign up at the Community Center. The Freewill Methodist Church worked along with the Presbyterian Church District Office; got a Headstart program started for the little kids, a lunch program for old folks, and a community potluck and dance first Saturday of the month.
Funny thing, too; people started comin’ to church that hadn’t been there in an age. Pretty soon the place was filled, just like the old days, Mama said. Brother Charles put her in charge of the visitation team. Ever shut-in had someone stop by once a week. Mama said seein’ the look on the old folks’ faces was a blessin’ in itself.
If you’d a told me all those years ago that some day I’d be director a the Jackson Newman Community Center and a deacon at Freewill Methodist, I’d a said you was crazy. I just been doin’ whatever work the Lord put in my way.
Sometimes I think bout Jackson, how he barely had time to live, almost like he was never here at all. Then I look around and see what he started here in these mountains, all the signs of his passin’. More ‘n anything, he showed us that Jesus believed in us, even when we didn’t believe in ourselves. When you come to see that Jesus believes in you, why you can change the world. You can change the world. AMEN
Copyright © 2002 by Pamela J. Tinnin. Reprinted with permission.
(Comments to Pam at PamT481@AOL.COM )