“It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”
— Actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932 – 2011)
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“I’m going up to W.R. DeWoody’s Western Auto,” I remember my grandfather announcing one summer day in the early 1960s.
Summertime was fun time for a kid at my father’s parent’s house in Pittsburg. Sleeping late. Home-cooked breakfast. Playing in the tree-filled yard. Afternoons sailing homemade boats in the city park pond.
“What for,” Grandmother quizzed, pouring another cup of coffee.
“See if they have a mower part,” was his short response.
“Why don’t you call,” she retorted. “We got a telephone now.” The recently acquired black dial-operated device connected to the wall by a cord sat mostly ignored. Sometimes, even when it rang and my grandparents argued over who was going to get up and answer it.
“I’m not going to answer that thing,” I heard Granddaddy say often. “I can’t think of anybody I want to talk to right now.”
The number was University 8-3721. I think. All that was required for a local call, however, were the last four digits. The University 8 was used only to give the operator when dialing “0” to place a long-distance call. Which my grandparents rarely did because it cost an extra 20 cents. If you kept your conversation under three minutes.
“I’d rather see who I’m talking to,” my grandfather said, responding to the “why don’t you call” question. “Looking at who I’m talking to cuts down on confusion, builds relationships, and teaches patience. Ain’t got time to talk to nobody I can’t look in the eyes.”
Granddaddy was on to something more than lawnmower parts.
The rush between Thanksgiving and Christmas makes me yearn for that slower time. When people had patience. Except for kids looking forward to Christmas.
From an adult’s perspective, time speeds up every year. But a child is born into the world counting the days until Christmas.
Once counted as a virtue, patience appears to be diminishing as the number of loose nuts behind steering wheels keep increasing. Like the story I heard last week about a driver being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy street. When the traffic light ahead turned yellow, the driver in front of her stopped as the light turned red. As he should have.
The tailgater was enraged. Horn honking and hollering at the driver ahead. She was still in mid-rant when a police officer walked up and asked her to get out of the car and put her hands behind her head. She was taken to the station and held for questioning before the police officer told her she was free to go.
“We’re very sorry for the mistake,” he said. “I saw you honking your horn, gesturing at the driver ahead, and cussing a blue streak. Then I saw the ‘What would Jesus Do’ license frame, the ‘Follow me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome Christian fish symbol and naturally assumed you had stolen the car.
I laughed, but that recalled an incident my mother encountered years ago. Back when I was a kid counting the days until Christmas. South Jefferson Street in my hometown of Mount Pleasant differed from the busy, booming street it is now. There was no bypass loop then. No shopping Center with a parking lot full of cars. Just three businesses facing the street. The Dairy Bar, a tractor dealership, and Larry Talley’s small neighborhood grocery … without gas pumps. Because there was no such thing then as self-service gasoline.
Mom drove her green-and-white ’54 Chevy under the railroad overpass and slowed at the corner at Boatner’s Furniture. The light was turning yellow as she approached, and being the careful driver my mother was, she stopped just as the light changed to red.
Everything was fine until a honking horn blared behind her. A lady emerged from the car and walked to Mom’s car window while hollering about a carton of broken eggs. A conversation ensued between them about whether yellow means slow down and stop or “floor it and run the red light.”
The discussion was short-lived. The light turned green, and other horn honkers egged them both to get on down the road.
I’m a few years down the road myself since that incident. Christmas is coming again, and I’m, once more, wishing for that slower time. When people had more patience. Took time to relax. Weren’t joined at the hip to a telephone.
My capacity for waiting is better, but I still ask God to grant me patience.
I just ask Him to grant it now … please.
—Leon Aldridge
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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.
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