Monthly Archives: June 2013

“I have seen whole families like that.”

Posted on by
Reply
1968-73 Album - 056 From L to R Lloyd Warford (me), Papaw Elmer Warford and David Warford (brother) Taken in 1968 after a deep sea fishing trip off the Coast of North Carolina on a boat called the Danco.

When I was a kid and I would say, “Papaw, I am hungry,” my Papaw would say “I have seen whole families like that.”  My Papaw was a walking encyclopedia of old sayings and I love most of them but when I was a kid I never like this one very much.  He used it all the time.  Papaw I’m thirsty. “I have seen whole families like that.” Papaw I need some money. “I have seen whole families like that.” Papaw I need a new fishing pole. “I have seen whole families like that.” This little old saying was the ultimate kid block. That saying was my Papaw’s way of telling you that you didn’t really need that and you can make do without it. He was not being unkind; he never had much money and he wanted us kids to understand the difference in wants and needs.  If Papaw got you a Safeway soda water and a moon pie for a fishing trip it was a big deal.  Most of the time before you got your moon pie and a trip to the pond there was work to be done and my Papaw never worried about child labor laws. We built fence, plowed fields, fed hogs, bailed hay and so on and so forth.

Here is the thing; every one of my Papaw’s grandkids will tell you that Papaw Warford spoiled all of us rotten.   He spoiled us with his time, his attention and his unwavering support.  When it came to his grandkids Papaw Warford was the most easygoing man I have ever known.  It didn’t matter what you did Papaw was okay with it as long as you were doing the best you could. If the field was plowed a little crooked he wasn’t worried about it.  I remember looking at a field I had plowed one time and it was a mess.  All Papaw said was “Lloyd that lower end of the field is a little catawampus but I think we can make it work.” On another occasion one of my cousins, Shane Warford, ran the tractor into a row of fence.  Papaw said “Shane, you need to be more careful next time” and that was the end of it.  There was fence to repair and nothing else needed to be said.

I now have an fourteen year old son, Noah. Of all of my Papaw’s sayings the one I hear coming out of my mouth the most is “I have seen whole families like that.” I don’t think Noah appreciates that saying any more than I did when I was a kid but I know he will someday when he has a son of his own.

Heirlooms

Posted on by
Reply

Without delving too far in to old English common law the basic idea behind an heirloom is that it is something passed down from generation to generation within a family. As you might imagine being the self-appointed family historian I have accumulated a number of items which I consider to be heirlooms. Most of these items have no real intrinsic value to anyone. They are important only because they represent a connection to the to those who have gone before us. My hope is to give each of my children at least one heirloom that will mean something to them.

I have always love photographs. When I was a child I would spend hours rifling through the shoe boxes full of photographs that my parents had collected over the years. As a young adult I dug all of those photographs out of shoeboxes and put them in albums. When I was in high school I wanted to be a photographer and I begged my parents for a 35mm camera. We didn’t have a lot of money at the time and cameras were quite expensive but for Christmas they managed to get me a Pentax 35mm camera.  I love that Pentax but that’s not my most important camera, my most important camera, is a Browning box camera.

This camera belonged to my grandmother, Olga Baker, Armand, Griffith. I consider this camera to be an heirloom and it is my hope that it will be passed down in our family along with the pictures here and the stories behind the camera and each of these pictures.  The first picture (above) is of the Browning camera. The second picture (below) is of my Mom using a camera just like this one to take my picture. We can’t be for sure it is this very camera because there were a couple in the family but this camera is old enough and could be the camera in the picture.  The last picture is the picture my mother took with the camera in the picture. These pictures were taken on or very close to my first birthday in August 1960.1960 - Kenneth Lloyd Warford 004

My middle child Kristina has my love for photography and pictures so much so that she has made it her profession and has started her own photography business. In May 2013 two of her pictures were published in the Arkansas Bride magazine. There are a lot of photographers in Arkansas who work hard at it every day and it was quite an accomplishment for Kristina to have to photographs selected for publication. I am so proud of Kristina for having a dream in going after it.

Whether Kristina sticks with the photography as a profession or moves on to other things I will always be proud of her photographic accomplishments and I hope she will always share my love for photography.

Kristina when I leave this world I want you to have this camera. I hope you will care for it and someday pass it on to another member of the family who loves photography asking them to safeguard this camera and these memories.

The last picture is of Kristina with her modern camera and one of her wedding portraits. See more of Kristina’s photography at http://kmwarford.zenfolio.com/

2013-05-11 012b

The Magic Word

Posted on by
Reply

1984-06 Melissa Warford 001Persistence – To try and try again.

When my oldest daughter, Melissa, was learning to talk one of her first words was persistence. I would ask her, what’s the magic word, and she would say, persistence. What’s that mean, I would ask, and she would say, try and try again. Lest anyone think I was attempting to start some sort of cult let me share with you how all this came about.

When I was in college I took a course in education psychology. My teacher hammered into us that parents create in their children a core set of fundamental beliefs that govern how the child will respond to the world. She emphasized that the number of ideas that would form this core group of beliefs would be relatively small but that they would have an indelible impact on the child. Normally this implanting of values is done by parents with very little thought. In most cases what we do reflects what our parents did. My instructor challenged us to sit down and carefully decide what theme or themes we want to create in our home. Her ideal was to consciously pass on the good we learned from our parents but to leave the bad behind.

She opined that if a parent tried to teach too many beliefs the parents impact would actually be diluted, so we had to create a focus for ourselves and our children. To create a theme in our home and in our child a handful of values or beliefs had to be reinforce to the exclusion of others. We had to write a short paper identifying the core values we would attempt to transfer to our children and why. For my class project I chose faith, family and persistence.

I took all this to heart and set about teaching Melissa persistence. Man did I succeed. Melissa’s persistence is legendary. There were times especially when she was a teenager that I had serious doubts about the wisdom of me teaching Melissa to be so persistent. To this day Melissa is focused and extremely persistent about everything in her life. She is truly amazing and fortunately she has learned some patience as she has gotten older.

When my second daughter, Kristina, was born I chose the same three core values I had taught Melissa but I added a fourth, patience.

Parenting and The Old Sayings

Posted on by
Reply

I want to introduce a couple of new categories to my blog, Parenting and Old Sayings. These categories will probably become chapters in the book when I put this all together for my kids.

I first became a parent more than 30 years ago.  By the time my youngest graduates from High School I will have had a child under eighteen for more than forty years.  My parenting style is to try to talk to my children as much as they can stand it about life’s hard choices and dangerous pitfalls. Now kids are incredibly impatient with parents trying to parent them and most of them have the ability to turn you off in a matter of minutes. My strategy has always been to keep my little talks short but to be intentionally redundant.  In writing being redundant is a bad thing but I am convinced that being redundant as a parent can make the difference in a child who gets it and one that doesn’t.  I was so redundant with my oldest, Melissa, that when she was a teenager she claimed she had started numbering my old sayings and lectures.  When the situation permits I always try to add a little humor to the lesson and I have found the old saying to be a helpful tool.

For years I have said to one of my three children “there is an old saying…”  The old saying was of course intended to teach a lesson or impart some wisdom. Once they learn the old saying then I look for chances to reinforce it.  When I see one of them or another young person violating one of the old sayings, I would say, “did you forget the old saying” or ask, “that kid didn’t know the old sayings did they?”  Now that I am thinking about it, it has become something of an old saying for me to say, “They didn’t learn the old sayings did they?”

Since old sayings are a big part of my parenting style these two categories will often overlap. Some of the old sayings are not about imparting wisdom they are just fun ways to say the everyday things parents are forced to say. I got most of my sayings from my Parents and Grandparents. Not that they made them up, most have been around for generations. Some came from the Bible. A few I sort of came up with myself. When I say I came up with a saying I usually mean I found a modern way of communicating and old concept. My blog post on the old sayings and parenting stories will usually be shorter than my other post but I hope you find them entertaining.

The Old Home Place

Posted on by
Reply

062313_0225_TheOldHomeP2.jpg

The adults in this picture from left to right are Millicent Armand Carr

Kenneth Warford

Uncle Chuck Warford

Uncle Floyd Warford

Aunt Katherine (Kitty) Pool Warford

Mamaw, Sally Teague Warford

Papaw, Elmer Warford

The kids are:

Eddie Warford

Jerry Warford

I am the baby

I was born in Houston, Texas but my parents moved to Arkansas when I was only about six weeks old. This was the first of many moves. For most of my childhood my father was either a Baptist preacher or an Air Force Chaplain. We had a good life but we were nomads. From the time I was born until I left home I never spent more than three Christmases in the same house. When we got to Arkansas we went to Papaw and Mamaw’s house. This picture is actually my first Warford family picture. It was, I am told, a very big occasion but as you can see, I appear to have slept through the whole thing.

I love this old picture for many reasons. Obviously the fact that it was a first is a pretty big deal but there is something else. Most of the Warfords from my line, at least the ones that have gray hair or color it, refer to that little white house as the old home place. Can you see the porch right there on the front of that little house? One glance at that porch drowns me in memories. That porch was an all-weather playground for all the kids in my family. So many things happened on that porch. When we played hide and seek that porch was the base, when we ate watermelon we ate it on that porch, when I got my hair cut it was cut on that porch, we shot firecrackers, bottle rockets, BB Guns, rifles and shotguns off that porch. I could probably fill a nice little book with porch stories but for now let me just say that was one seriously all-purpose porch.

It is hard to explain, I never lived in the little white house at the end of Warford road and I never visited there for more than thirty days at a time but for me the little white house in this picture will always be my old home place.

The Trouble with Trouble is it Starts out like Fun

Posted on by
1

This picture was taken in the summer of 1963 at our home in Star City Arkansas. My little brother, David, on the right, has somehow managed to get himself cover in mud. That is me on the left and as you can see I am still pretty clean. For years I have been accused of somehow getting David muddy without getting myself muddy. Nobody knows how a four year old might have pulled this off but there is a generally held belief in my family that the grin on my face is strong circumstantial evidence that I was responsible.

I don’t know for sure but this may have been the day I first heard my mom say that “the trouble with trouble is it starts out like fun.” I heard her say that at least once a week when I was growing up. My brother and I were always into something and when she got old enough my younger sister was right there with us. One thing I can say about my childhood is we had fun, and yes, we often ended up in one kind of trouble or another. Fortunately the trouble we got into was usually the kind you could wash off. That is important.

The saying “the trouble with trouble is it starts out like fun” applies to all sorts of behaviors with drastically different consequences. It certainly applies to little boys and mud holes but it also applies to many more dangerous behaviors such as driving too fast, drinking excessively, and inappropriate relationships. The list of dangerous behaviors that seem fun at first but can quickly go bad is endless. We are all going to make mistakes but it is important we avoid those mistakes that cannot be undone. The goal is to teach our kids to measure risk and to know when it is time to walk away from a challenge, a dare, a fight, an unhealthy relationship or destructive friendship. The goal is to teach them to recognize for themselves that sometimes a few minutes of fun can result in a life time of consequences. The trouble with trouble, really is, that it starts out like fun.

What will heaven be like?

Posted on by
Reply

Scan0010This past weekend we spent Sunday touring the Cowboys Stadium. It was amazing. The best part of the tour was at the very end where they just let us play on the field. I will be fifty-four in a couple of months but I had a blast. I kicked the ball, threw the ball and I caught the ball. I did things I had not done in more than 20 or maybe 30 years. I felt like a kid and it reminded me of a theological dilemma I tried to work out when I was thirteen.

When I was thirteen years old I heard a sermon about heaven and it caused me great concern. You see, the preacher, said we were going to spend all our time in heaven singing praises and worshiping. Now, I have always loved to sing and I probably enjoyed church as much as any kid but singing praises and worshiping 24/7 sounded like torture. In all honesty it still does. Now at thirteen years old the thing I loved to do most was play football. I literally slept with the football in my bed and I carried one to school every day, not just in season, but all year long. 2013-06-16 165c

One day I heard another preacher say that heaven would be better than the best world we could possibly imagine. I began to dream about what I hoped heaven would be like. In my dreams every day was Sunday, we got up, went to church, worshiped and then we played some football. The theological dilemma was not whether there would be football in heaven, of course there would be. I could not imagine heaven without football. My theological dilemma was how people in heaven could experience the thrill of victory if no one there ever experiences the agony of defeat.

1017089_2120042436940_84245937_n

The concept of winning and losing just did not go together with Bible verses on there being no pain or sorrow in heaven. I actually remember struggling with this in my mind night after night and sometimes during the day. Eventually, I decided they would probably not keep score in heaven or maybe they would only keep up with the difference. Either way, I imagined if one team got too far ahead we would just pick teams again and start over. 1014571_10151662331954883_1117832724_o

As I got older I realized that this is completely childish thinking and eventually I decided to take a closer look at what the scriptures say about heaven. My favorite scripture on heaven is in Luke Chapter 23. There were two common criminals who were crucified side by side with Christ. One of the criminals was defiant until death and railed against Christ, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other repented and he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Did you here that; Jesus said, “in Paradise.” What did Christ mean by paradise? I honestly still don’t know but I like the sound of it. At fifty-three it is enough that Christ described heaven as paradise. 2013-06-16 176

As an adult I have reconciled myself to the fact there is probably not going to be football in heaven. I am now 40 years older and way too mature for such childish dreams. Still, deep down inside of me there remains a tiny flicker of hope that after worship on my first morning in heaven, someone will pull out a football, and ask, whose pick is it?

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Posted on by
Reply

1969 - Vietnam - Baptism 01

In 1969 my father, Kenneth A. Warford was an Air Force Chaplain serving in Vietnam. Baptist Chaplains rarely perform the baptism of soldiers and airman. Baptist Chaplains normally may only baptize a soldier or airman with the permission of, and in conjunction with, a local Baptist Church. Obviously there were no local Baptist Churches in Vietnam and making arrangements with a local church back home could take months. Communication with preachers and congregations back home were far more difficult than today. This put Chaplains like my father in the position of denying baptism to new believers for months or even years. Baptist do not believe that baptism is necessary for salvation but most new believers have a strong desire to be baptized. Some chaplains, including my father, were also concern that denying baptism to new converts sent a message to other soldiers and airmen to put off getting their lives right with God until they got home. On most occasions the young men were encouraged to wait until they got home for baptism but there were times when some Baptist Chaplains felt led to bend the rules. In the winter of 1969, Chaplain Kenneth A. Warford baptized Airman 1st Class Robert E. Douglas off the coast of Tuy Hoa Air Force Base in the South China Sea. There were other such baptisms in Vietnam but as far as I know this is the only picture and record of one.

“Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Matthew 28:18-20

Get on that couch and don’t get off of it!

Posted on by
5

1965-03 Lloyd, David and KarenThis picture is the oldest picture I have of my sister, brother and I all dressed up for church. Notice we are all sitting on the couch. You see, as far back as I can remember my parents’ routine on Sunday morning was to dress each of us one at a time from the oldest to the youngest. Once dressed, we would be placed on the couch in the living room and threatened with our lives if we got off the couch. Now, when I was a child, this all seemed rather harsh and unnecessary. It was not until years later when I began to hear all the Sunday morning stories that I understood the “don’t get off the couch” rule. You see, things just went wrong at our house on Sunday morning. The stories of our escapades were many and I have forgotten most of them but let me share with you a few I remember.

One Sunday morning while one of us was being dressed the other decided he was not quite finished with his bath and climbed back into the tub wearing his Sunday best. I’m not certain but I think I was the culprit.

On another occasion my mother had me all dressed for Church and ask my Dad to comb my hair. He combed my hair, all right, but then he proceeded to spray it in place, mistakenly using a can of Lysol disinfectant spray.  This time it was my parents that put me back in the tub.

I actually remember the final episode in the tales of Sunday morning. It occurred about the time this picture was taken. In fact, I think it may have been the same day. My mom had gotten each of us dressed and positioned on the couch. She went off to get herself dressed leaving my Dad in charge. My Dad finished polishing his shoes and headed out for Church leaving me to watch my brother and sister. That is of course a pretty tall order for a five year old who is also trying to watch Bullwinkle. A few minutes later I realized Karen was gone. It only took a few seconds for me to track her down. You see, Karen had crawled over to where my father was polishing his shoes. With the lid in one hand and the can of polish in the other she had then crawl down the hall leaving a trail of black polish that even a five-year-old could follow. There were alternating black circles and black rings leading from where my father had polished his shoes to where she was now sitting.  There she was in her pretty little dress digging the shoe polish out with her hands like it was play dough.

My father and mother took very seriously their responsibility to take all of us to church. You would think that would be an easy commitment to keep when you are the pastor of the church but somehow Sunday mornings were always the most chaotic days of the week.

My dad became convinced that Satan himself was working to create as much confusion as possible on Sunday morning. The satanic goal was to ensure that we were late for church and that he was distracted or outright angry by the time he got up to preach. It is all funny now and we enjoy sharing and helping each other remember these old stories but we are all profoundly grateful that in spite of all the chaos our parents made sure we got to church. We may have been late, a little damp, smelling of Lysol or shoe polish but we got there.  Praise be to God, we got there.

6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)