A Tough Road

Although the song, “500 Miles Away From Home” was released in the 60’s, it seemed part of my life in 1972.  After the height of my pride in 1971 at my August college graduation, I was stripped of my vanity by a terrible job market.  I couldn’t find anything remotely close to my accounting training and I headed to Nashville, TN on a whim.  I was tired of people telling me how my uncle was calling me a bum, who didn’t want a job.  I actually rode with that same uncle to Jefferson City, where I caught a ride to Nashville.  I accomplished little in Nashville except to make a couple of old friends unhappy, so I stepped on a bus and headed back to Jeff City.  I didn’t have enough money for a ticket back home. 

I stayed in old friend, Earl Stroup’s trailer for a couple of days until my brother, Mitch Whisnant, talked me into riding back to Greenville, SC with him.  After spending a few days in the home of Mike and Betty Whisnant, I moved over to a trailer with Mitch and his housemate, Jim Gilstrap.  I can’t tell you how many times I was refused a job because I was supposedly overqualified.  In the meantime, though, I started substitute teaching at Carolina High School in Greenville in order to make a little coin.  I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed being in the classroom and around teenagers.

I went home and found a seasonal job and returned to college in the Spring of ’73 and ’74.  In ’74 a government recruiter came to my off-campus residence and offered me a job with an agency that is now part of the FDIC.  The agency liked my test scores and really came on strong, but I decided not take the job.  When I took an accounting class while training in ’73, my old accounting prof said, “Roberts, you don’t want to teach,” and told me he could set me up as an accountant for a ski lodge.  I thanked him, but stuck with my hopeful teaching path.

I continued to work at that same seasonal job and in the Fall of ’74 was told by my boss of a teaching job open at Wicomico High School.  I had already interviewed for a full-time job with my seasonal employer that would have required a move to New Jersey. At the same time, I interviewed and was hired for the teaching job at Wicomico.  Two years later, I began coaching basketball.  Thirty-three years later I retired with lots of great memories.   

It wasn’t a fun journey from ’72 until ‘74, but in the end, God led me where he wanted me to be.  I’m forever grateful He did.  For much of that difficult road, however, Bobby Bare’s classic echoed in my thoughts, and it still brings back memories all of these years later.  It’s a classic. 

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”—Proverbs 16:9

ON FATHER’S DAY

Most of my life I tried to ignore Father’s Day.  My biological father made the decision to have no part in my life after he and my mother divorced.  There was never a Christmas or birthday card and no contact until he wrote me a short letter when he was dying.  By then, I didn’t care. 

My stepfather of four years was a kind-hearted man who loved my mother and tolerated me.  He never mistreated me, but his addiction took its toll on both my mother and myself.  Sadly, he finally ended his own life.

There were two men who stepped up, maybe without realizing, and became father-figures for me.  God was watching and knew I needed the guidance.  My grandfather, though not an affectionate man, showed the importance of a good heart, an honest life, and hard work.  In his last days he told my grandmother I had “always done what he asked and that I would probably share my last morsal of food with him.”  He was right, and my promise to meet him in Heaven has always been close to my heart, even when I have strayed.

Another man came into my life not long before my grandfather left us.  He became my pastor, but also showed me much of how a man should carry himself through a difficult world.  He was accompanied by a second mom for me and children who would become much like brothers and sisters.  I can still hear him say “well Howie” when I would say something a little outrageous. 

God didn’t skimp on my male figures.  I watched carefully the men of my small church.  I noted how they treated others and also how they treated their own families.

Finally, I might add, I never had any children of my own, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t sometimes need to play father figure.  In 33 years of teaching, over 3,500 young people came through my door.  Some were confidant, sometimes overly so, and others had already been knocked down by life’s difficulties.  They had different needs and required a different touch to help them meet the world’s realities.  I tried to supply what was necessary when I could.  Sometimes I think I was successful. 

My 20 years as a basketball coach also offered many opportunities to offer a man’s touch to young lives.  When I resigned from coaching in 1999, a young lady who played for me cried.  A few days later she gave me a letter demonstrating her memories of everything I had sought to do for her.  She told me I had been more of a father to her than her own father.  I was happy and sad at the same time; happy to have helped, but sad she had been short-changed by her father.  He didn’t know what he was missing. 

And so, if my first two paragraphs read like a “pity party,” they shouldn’t.  What I missed, I got back through the lives of other men.  I observed some great examples; examples that led me to become the man I am.  Hopefully, you think that’s a good thing