Category: Stories

This was originally published in January, 2018, in the Lynn Haven Ledger/Gulf Coast Gazette.  This particular house had been built on what is the main drag in the small town of Lynn Haven, Florida, and because of road widening, was in danger of being demolished.  An outcry ensued to save history.

Some say the house was built in 1911, and others say it was built in 1915. Records back then weren’t always kept accurately, but what we do know is that right about that time, and when Lynn Haven was in its infancy, two sisters from Ohio moved down to our fledgling community and built their new home at 1312 Ohio Ave. I’m thinking they picked that street because of where they were from. But then, I’m a story-teller, so who knows for sure?

These two ladies hailed from a very cold climate, where winter snow accumulating on your roof could cause it to collapse, so they instructed the builders to give their new home a steep roof pitch to prevent such an occurrence. Of course, even though it’s been plenty cold here for the last couple of weeks, so far we haven’t had to worry about snow accumulating on our roofs. Hope on hope ever.

The house was painted white back then, and in 1938, when Thomas Delano “Dino” Suggs was just 5 years old, his dad Thomas Oscar Suggs bought the house along with several adjacent lots, and moved his family in. Dino is the oldest of 3 children, and he has many fond memories of growing up right there on the main drag of town. Dino loved playing marbles with his baby sister Imogene, and he and his brother Bobby would play in the street since it was the only cement around. “About every fifteen minutes we’d have to stop because a car would come by,” Dino told me. Highway 77 back then was a far cry from what the traffic is like today.

They had a cow named Daisy fenced in the back area, and a garden plot where they grew mostly peas and corn their mother put up every fall to feed them throughout the year. Next to the house, there were also Catawba Worm trees gracefully growing tall to provide much needed shade during the hot summers.

Dino recalls a secret room he had all to himself under the staircase where he would go when he wanted to get away from it all. “That was my hideout,” he said with a smile.

After Dino was grown and with a family of his own, he built a house across the street at 1313 Ohio Ave. His children loved spending time with their grandparents, running up and down the stairs, swinging in the porch swings, and having Easter Egg hunts every year. Creating more and more memories, filling the house and yard with the laughter and joy of children.

But things are different now, and speaking of traffic, that’s why this venerable and long-standing home is being featured today.

Highway 390 is being widened to accommodate Lynn Haven’s growing population with its accompanying cars and trucks and pedestrians and congestion. Which means the house at 1312 Ohio Ave has to go.

Several years ago, Dino, who inherited the house and adjoining property after his parents died, was contacted by the State of Florida and was told his property would be seized by eminent domain, so it looked like the house would have to be torn down after standing so strong for so many years.

When you think about it, can you imagine the sights the Suggs house on Ohio Ave has seen and the advancements it has witnessed over the last one hundred years or so? Paved roads, and shopping centers, and fast food restaurants just to start. Then cable TV and telephones and computers and something called the internet. I can picture the movie starring a house with a heart that watches over a small town, memorializing all the changes – the good and the bad.

But we’re getting off-topic.

When the Suggs family was informed the house would have to go, they contacted the City of Lynn Haven to see if they could get permission to just move the house over to one of the other lots instead of demolishing a historic landmark, but at first they were told ‘no’. However, the family didn’t give up. They persisted, pleading with the city that it would make Dino feel better to not have the house torn down. They finally got the OK. This stretch of Ohio Ave with its many businesses is now zoned commercial, but in March of 2017, the City of Lynn Haven agreed to grandfather the house in.

The family is now thinking they may turn the house into an antique shop in the future, or they may keep it for the grandkids to use.

The Suggs family located a moving company with a good reputation by the name of Ducky Johnson House Movers, a local company that’s been doing a lot of moving in the Panhandle and beyond for a number of years. One of their moves was even featured on HGTV.   This move won’t be in a TV episode, but all of Lynn Haven will get to see it front and center, and with Ducky Johnson House Movers’ excellent credentials, we’re pretty confident everything will go well.

Just think, maybe in a couple of years, 1312 Ohio Ave will boast a beautiful and quirky and fun antique shop filled with wonderful finds from yesteryear.

The older I get the more I appreciate age. It’s not always outward beauty that catches your eye and grabs your heart, because that kind of beauty fades, but the strength and wisdom garnered from years of storms and dirt and just plain living is what makes you cherish the past with its warped floors and crooked windows. Besides, I think laughter still echoes through empty halls long after the occupants are gone.

Here’s to the saving of a special piece of more than just real estate.

This article was originally published in GO! Christian Magazine, Winter 2018. www.gochristianmagazine.com

Gary’s long road to Jesus began back in 1963. He was 10 years old and desperately wanted to be happy and have a good time like the big kids in the neighborhood.

“Back in my days, younger kids wanted to be like the older kids,” Gary said. Drugs quickly became his best friend, and then his ball and chain. For the next 28 years of his life, Gary would be doing drugs of one kind or another. It’s easier for him to mention the few drugs he didn’t use than list the ones he did. The choices to drink and do drugs were his. He doesn’t blame his parents or even the people who introduced him to drugs.

When he was 17, he was tired of everyone telling him what to do, so, ironically, he joined the military where everyone told him what to do. His drug use continued, and he became an expert at hiding his addiction and living a double life. After he left the military, Gary was able to get a good paying job. With more disposable income, he was able to buy more drugs, and keep up the charade of being an upright citizen.

In 1990, he got caught up in a sting at one of the drug houses he frequented and spent the next four months in jail where it finally came to him: He needed Jesus. With a wistful look in his eyes, Gary tells of a friend he had back then named Isaiah Jackson. This friend—a real friend—would witness to Gary every chance he got. And when those metal doors in the jail clanged shut behind him, Gary could hear his friend’s voice in his head once again talking about his need to be saved. Jesus died on the cross to save Gary from the life he was living, and Gary decided it was time to let Him. Gary accepted Christ’s gift of salvation in that jail cell. He began reading the Bible, and learned more about his new faith. He got out of jail on Friday the 13th, and was in church on the 15th.

Unfortunately, he made the mistake of going back to the same people he had gotten in trouble with. Gary fell back into drug addiction and was jailed twice more. During his third incarceration on charges of drug sales, Gary finally got the revelation to change his life. He was facing a possible 60 years in prison if convicted, and there was no one to blame but himself. He had made the decisions to use and buy drugs. He was the guilty one, but the jury found him not guilty of the charges brought against him.

When Gary was released from jail for the third time, he knew he would never go back as an inmate. For the last 20 years, he has returned as a chaplain. He leads Bible studies, writes his own curriculum, and preaches from the Bible and his own life. Gary focuses his teaching on what Jesus has done for him, and that God can do the same for them.

Gary hasn’t done this all alone, though. He has been married to his wife and best friend, Maxine, for 24 years. He asked her to marry him the first time he talked to her on the phone. After four children, 18 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, they’re still loving and serving together.

When they were first married, they opened up a daycare center, where they took in the ‘problem’ children other daycare centers wouldn’t take. During this time, Gary baked cakes for people and sold them as a small side job. As time passed, it grew into a business of its own.

Seven years ago, Gary and Maxine opened Touch of Velvet bakery in Lynn Haven where they make every cake from scratch. They use family recipes and invent their own. Red velvet cake was their first product, and now they have 16 original scrumptious cakes to choose from. They also offer cupcakes, muffins, brownies, cookies, and even puddings and pies.

Gary is committed to living his life for Christ. For those being released from jail or prison, he offers advice on how to keep from ending up right back behind bars: “Don’t go back to the same place you came from. Find new friends and family.” Gary now considers his Christian friends his family. This is what he discovered after ending up in jail two more times. You can’t stay friends with the same people that you got in trouble with. You have to find new people who will build you up and encourage you to do better.

Gary Pope spent many years wasting his life as an addict and convict. He’s been clean and sober now for a long time, and he’s not going back. “Without Jesus, I wouldn’t be where I am,” he says with conviction. “Everything I have is from the Lord. It’s all Jesus.”

This article was originally published in the Lynn Haven Ledger/Gulf Coast Gazette, September 2017 after Hurricane Irma in Faith and Inspiration.

Years ago I had an elderly friend from Alabama. I grew up in Michigan, so her euphemisms were cute and, usually, right to the point. If I were going to say to you right now, hey, would you like me to tell you about Harvey and Irma and how neighbors helped neighbors and strangers helped strangers?

She would say – “That’s what I KNOW!”

So, yeah, that’s exactly what you already know.

I’ve been re-reading one of my favorite books over the past few days. We’ll it’s actually two books. The first book followed by the sequel. The first book ends on a heightened note of destruction and despair, leaving you with dropped jaw and tears in your eyes, and the second book ends on a note of hope and deliverance, giving you that warm, fuzzy feeling most of us enjoy. These are the stories I love to read about. Stories with, if not a happy ending, one full of hope for the future.

And that’s what happened with Harvey and Irma. The hurricanes, after finally blowing themselves out, ended their stories on a note of destruction and despair, and now we’re just beginning the sequel that is full of hope and deliverance.

For example, fishing boats with regular guys searching the flooded streets of Houston for the stranded and bedraggled in need of rescuing. First responders driving up and down the streets before the storm sounding the alarm. Helicopters hovering over flooded houses, lowering life-saving ropes to waiting hands and terrified hearts. Convoys arriving with much needed food and water, blankets and medicine. Everyday people grilling hotdogs on the side of I-75, handing out the food for free to evacuees heading for safety.

Homes and businesses destroyed, the newly homeless surveying the damage and wondering when and if they will ever be whole again.

My Facebook feed was filled with expressions of encouragement, prayers lifted, and offers of help.

And to top it off, today is September 11th. Remembering the day we lost almost 3,000 of our fellow Americans in three terrorist attacks. And on a personal note, yesterday was the first anniversary of my momma’s death. We’re feeling a little battered and beat up today, aren’t we?

It’s raining outside as I sit at my dining room table typing this article. We could think of the rain as symbolic of the tears cried for the lives and property lost. We could think of it as symbolic of God washing everything clean, like a new start.

One Facebook post I read went something like this: Instead of praying for me, why don’t you actually give me what I need?

Most of the commenters responded with statements like: Yeah, people only pray to make themselves feel better.

Which made me sad, so I responded that, yes, I believe prayer is very powerful, but I also believe that when you see someone in need, you don’t need to pray about it, just provide it. Which opened up a whole discussion about prayer and whether it’s really effective or not.

Well, I’m not a theologian, so all I could tell them was that I know prayer is powerful because I’ve experienced God’s intervention many times and encouraged them to talk to God themselves.

But you know what? It seemed like I was beating my head against a wall with my words. Tragedy breaks us and re-shapes us. It’s up to us to decide what we’re being re-shaped into. We can look at coming destruction and pray, or we can shake our fist at God in anger.

One thing is certain, though. The sequels filled with hope and deliverance overcoming all odds are the best stories and the ones we remember most, and the ones we re-read over and over again, especially when our hearts fall down.

The books I’m re-reading feature the Bushmen of South Africa, and other tribes of many years ago. The Bushmen have a rich history full of stories passed down from generation to generation, and their way of speaking is beautifully poetic. They have a connection with the earth and living things because of their nomad way of life, and they understand the cycle of life and death. At the end of the first book, Xhabbo, the Bushman friend, was giving comfort to Nonnie, whose father had been brutally killed, along with scores of others.

“Xhabbo knew that the stars who hide in light as other things hide in darkness were there to see all today. For the stars do fall in this manner when our hearts fall down. The time when the stars also fall down is while the stars feel that our hearts fall over, because those who had been walking upright, leaving their footprints in the sand, have fallen over on to their sides. Therefore the stars fall down on account of them, knowing the time when men die and that they must, falling, go to tell other people that a bad thing has happened at another place.” ( A Story Like the Wind, by Laurens Van Der Post)

Even though we can’t see the stars for the clouds and rain, God, who made the stars and the clouds and even the hurricanes, sees all, and loves us. And I know that he is pleased to see his children being neighbors to those in need, no matter their station in life.

As Jesus said, the second greatest commandment is this – to love your neighbor as yourself.

The beautiful and uplifting stories being written in the aftermath of Harvey and Irma will be told and re-told for years to come, bringing encouragement and strength to our hearts when they fall down, reminding us that life, though difficult, is full of light and love and hope.