Wednesday, May 1, 2019 -
I love reading Bob Goff’s books. Last night, my cellmate walked in as I was cackling in laughter from an incident he had written about in Everybody Always, for it reminded of an experience I had 21 years ago. My “celly” wanted to know right then what was so funny, and so I read him the story in the book and then told him mine.
Bob Goff, since his first book, Love Does, was such a success that he travels all over the nation speaking. He got a call from a small town in Alabama that would have involved a lot of travel. So he asked what type of event they were wanting him to speak at. And the young man replied that they were having a croc drop. He immediately said, “I’m in!” for he’d never been to a croc drop before. Mr. Goff, in his humorous way, tells of some of the images going through his mind of whatever a croc drop must be. For, being from San Diego, he’d never even seen a crocodile before!
For the life of me, I had no idea was a croc drop was, either.
So he bought a plane ticket and went, ending up walking into a large warehouse with a bunch of potatoes sitting on tables. He found the young man who called him and asked him, “Where are the crocodiles?”
The young man smiled, for it turned out he had told him they were having a crop drop, where all the area churches get together and glean the leftover potatoes following harvest, to bag and give away to the poor.
With Kathie being from Alabama, and me being from just over the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan, I could relate to this misunderstanding. For when we first were married, we had a similar communication problem. I sounded like a typical New Yorker – like Archie Bunker actually. Kathie always said it sounded like I said “coffee” as if it were spelled with a “q.” But over the years, after being married to each other and having lived in Virginia for most of our lives, our accents have melded into one, and we sound very much alike unless we go back to our birthplaces and start to sound like the natives again.
Flash forward, after our marriage in 1981, to 1998, 17 years later! We’re driving down the interstate with our three children at the time, somewhere in Tennessee. Victoria leans up between Kathie and me and says, “Mommy, why’d Daddy buy you that little bitty ring?”
I was taken aback, somewhat, for I searched all over Los Angeles county (my home at the time) looking for white gold wedding bands, which were very hard to find in 1981! I finally found a set at a precious metal collectors convention, and bought them, despite the exorbitant price at the time (gold prices were at an all-time high).
Well, Kathie turned around and told Victoria, “I don’t know, honey, all I asked for was a wide gold band.”
Shocked, I said, “What’d you say? I thought you said white gold, not wide gold!” After 17 years, I learned the truth that I, much to my dismay, got the wrong wedding ring for my wife!
But, being the gracious woman and adoring wife that she is, she had never mentioned it to me! And so, last night, once again I had occasion to “rejoice in the wife of my youth” (Proverbs 5:18), “for her worth is above jewels” (Proverbs 31:10). She is “a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).