A Man Outstanding In His Field

This post was also posted on September 1, 2006.

Outstanding Papa

This is my dad, James Robert Storment.  He was from Iuka, MS in the northeast corner of Mississippi.  “Mississippi” is one of the first “big words” that I learned to spell. We did it a little like this:

Em- eye- crooked-letter crooked-letter eye crooked-letter crooked-letter eye humpback humpback eye

*sigh

…but I digress

He was a young man here….a man outstanding in his field!

eh hum.  that was a joke

Anyway, he’s been gone since 1979 and I was only 17.  Cancer killed him. It killed him bad.

Lately, I am missing him.  I go through this from time to time but my year has been a little difficult emotionally and I wonder what advice he might have offered.  It wasn’t that he was a big advice guy but he was balanced and seemed to be pretty wise.  Plus, I think my temperament was a little more like his.  I don’t know if I’ve developed character equal to his or not.

The day of his funeral I found out that he was popular and that LOTS of people respected him both professionally and as a friend.  I was his kid.  What did I know?

I want to give tribute to some of my memories of him.  I just want to remember him a bit.

So, my dad thought he was a conductor.  Yes, I mean of the orchestral kind.  He would drive down the road with the music going full volume and flail his arms and conduct his auto-orchestra.  He didn’t play an instrument that I know of…but my sister and I can vouch for his mastery of the car keys as an instrument at Christmas.

I have multiple memories of Saturday or Sunday housecleaning with all the doors and windows open, records on the turntable on our console stereo and the attic fan on.  This memory is more of a “feeling” rather than all the details.  I remember how the house felt and sounded and smelled on those days.

We would sit out in the driveway in the car and listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio.  We couldn’t get the broadcast in the house.

Summer thunderstorms didn’t send us inside but instead we would pull out the lawn chairs and feel the blast of the storm front as it moved in….hot day…hot, moist air….sudden hot wind…followed by the smell of rain…sounds of thunder….powerful lightening…cool puff of air…then the rain.

I hated doing it but it was my job to help with the yardwork.

I remember my interest in the end times…thoughts about the rapture of the Church…curiosity about the book of Revelation and it was then I found out that my dad actually read the bible and knew about Revelation.  I was astonished but comforted since I was, as the time, the only one in my family going to church.

He said to me when he became really ill:  “Don’t let them put me in the hospital.”  But, I did.  What was I to do?   I was the kid.

I prayed he would be healed like my pastor said…and I tried hard to not “doubt in my heart” and to really, really, really believe.  But, Pop died.  The pastor at the time said that if I had had “enough faith” my dad would have been healed.  I believed this guy for a long time afterward.  THAT guy was careless.

Today, I am comforted to know I’ll see my dad again.  Maybe God will let us sit in a car and listen to the radio.

Miss Myrtle

Miss Myrtle

This post was originally written September 1, 2006 and I re-post here to share with my new friends.

Everyone called her “Miss Myrtle”.  WE called her Mama Storment.  My dad once said to my OTHER grandmother, DeeDee, that she should be a proper grandmother (uh, more like his mother) to her grandchildren.  Anyway, this grandmother was sort of traditional.  The OTHER was modern.  This one worked in the yard and the other took us to play Putt-Putt.

You can’t see them but there is a magazine rack full of seed catalogs by her left knee.  There is also a Reader’s Digest.  A little further to her left is a treadle sewing machine where you had to pump the tread to make it go.  Every Christmas there was a large bowl of walnuts in the shell and tangerines.

Behind her there on the buffet is a picture of my mother.

Mama Storment let me feed the hens and get the eggs.  Once, she loaned me a book called The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter.  This was the ONLY book I ever saw in her possession. I loved it.  It was so descriptive!  It was a romance written from a naturalist’s point-of-view.  It captured my imagination. (I wish I had it.)

Her bathroom smelled of air freshener and rosebud salve.  The clock in her room ticked loudly and chimed the hours (and maybe the half hours).  She had some Mr. Peanut salt & pepper shakers beside it.

Her home felt like home.  People visited.  Lots of laughter.

There was a front porch where there were chairs and a swing.  You could look across the lawn to all the blooming plants and flowers.

Across the street was a funeral home.  It was standard fare to speculate about who was “up at the funeral home” and to turn on the radio at a specific time of day to hear the county funeral reports to the tune of “Old Rugged Cross” playing behind the report.

At Christmas we had a real Christmas tree which they flocked with soap suds (I think) and decorated with the old ceramic lights and ancient ornaments.  Later, there was dinner together and I remember the Ambrosia.

It is she who prayed for me and told me so.  I was so lost…and so hurting.  I hope she knows that I came to Jesus.  We’re going to see each other again.