Among my scribbled notes was a mention of the Beech Island Agricultural Club. Bud Trulock, a first cousin to my wife, told me long ago about a meeting he attended as a guest. I’m not sure what brought that conversation to mind more recently. I normally refrain from impolite language, as did Bud, but today I’m making an exception. 

Organized in 1856 in South Carolina, the club’s agenda for meetings includes electing a chairman for the next month and reading the minutes from 100 years earlier. Bud went because a retiring federal judge was being honored. 

When the seasoned jurist was asked to share what he had learned from his long tenure on the bench, an attentive crowd expected to hear eloquent pearls of wisdom. Instead he gave concise advice on flatulence and full bladders. “Never trust a @#$&,” he said, “and never pass up a chance to @#$.” Laughter and applause lasted longer than his talk.

A letter dated November 8, 2022, from the Georgia FFA Foundation was stashed among my scribbled notes. It was an acknowledgement of a memorial gift for my fellow Unadilla FFA String Band member Charles Jones. I kept the letter because of the inspiring signature at the bottom, Miracle Daley. I intended to ask about the story behind her name, but my intentions got buried under more scribbled notes.   

I hastily recorded a tidbit of family history in 2022. My mother had just recounted details of her mother winning the Silver Cow Evaporated Milk jingle contest. It was in the late 1950s, I think. I remember the prizes but didn’t know how she won them.

Grandmama was awarded coupons and a catalog for her first-place entry. The chrome dinette set she selected included a formica-top table plus six chairs with vinyl seats and backs. The other big item she chose was a clothes dryer, which worked great once they got electricity. 

I’m kidding about the current. The dryer was, however, an oddity at the time, the first in our community that I know of. Her clothes line was left in place, but used only slightly more than the iron dinner bell mounted near it. 

Our home also had a double clothes line, almost identical to Grandmama’s. Three galvanized pipes, with shorter pipes welded across the top to form a T, supported two strands of coated wire. A fond childhood memory is the wrinkled texture of line-dried muslin sheets. Their slight roughness made them feel cooler for a few seconds, a welcome sensation on hot summer nights.

A March 18, 2022, scribbled note described a newscast that day which showed Vladimir Putin addressing a large crowd in a Russian stadium. As he rallied support for his unwarranted invasion of Ukraine, he commended Russia’s military by quoting John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man known than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” 

It was disturbing to hear a murderous tyrant citing scripture to promote an unholy cause, but it shouldn’t have surprised me. Satan quoted scripture and his helpers still do. Other news that same day showed a Ukrainian city with a line of 110 empty strollers. Four years later the lines are much longer and still growing.

Sobering situations can feel overwhelming. Sometimes I take a frivolous detour and think about lighter moments, like Bud telling me about that old judge at Beech Island. At other times a name on a letter reminds me there’s always hope for tomorrow. If we look for it, we can find a miracle daily.