Daddy puttered off to the computer room. After about 15 minutes he returned. He was looking for something and couldn’t find it. “What were you looking for?” “A song book.” “What does it look like?” “It is kind of torn apart. It’s the old Cokesbury book. Well, I’m headed to bed.” He puttered on his way. A few minutes later he blew past me with his rolling walker. “I’m going to look someplace else.” He soon returned, book in hand. When I went in to tickle his feet, put in his eye drops and tuck him in for the night, he was looking through the songbook. “What are you looking for?” “The song that Leroy liked to sing.” He couldn’t remember the name of it. I flipped through the pages and stopped on page 153, unbeknown that was the song.
That’s when I remembered his story about Leroy. After Mama and Daddy moved to the South they became acquainted with Leroy and his family. Leroy was a bit slow – just like his folks. When it came plowing time, Leroy’s daddy hooked the plow up to Leroy and Leroy’s mom. They were the work mules. At church on Sunday Leroy would holler out, “Let’s sing One Fifty Three.” That was 153 in the Cokesbury Hymnal, “Love, Mercy and Grace.” I guess that song was sung every time Leroy was in the congregation.
Leroy’s folks would send him down the road to one of the neighbors to get their milk. He strolled down the red dirt road and got his bottle of milk. The poor guy got thirsty on the way home and drank some of it. His mom would kill him if he didn’t return with a full bottle of milk, so he veered off the road, headed to the creek, and filled the bottle before taking it home to his mom.
Family taking in the sights. Maybe Leroy passed by that day.