Just Passing Through

By Tom Poland

 

Tabernacle Baptist Church sits near an intersection where collisions seem to occur for no reason. Daylight, midnight, rain, drought, people keep wrecking. It got so bad the highway folks installed rings of red flashing lights around stop signs. “Watch out” they shout. Highway 220 crosses Highway 47 here and the crossroad’s location between Tabernacle Baptist Church and New Hope Baptist Church hasn’t stopped the Devil from practicing his dark specialty of wrecking lives. I hear tell a traffic circle may come next.

A convenience complex, Cliatt’s Crossing, overlooks the intersection. A hundred yards or so behind it stands my boyhood church with its brilliant white exterior and tin roof. Near Cliatt’s Crossing on Highway 47 those with a deep memory will show you where Nash Cliatt’s store sat. The little one-horse center of commerce burned long ago. “Nash’s Ashes” we call its site.

April 20, 2024, I passed Nash’s Ashes and turned right at the flashing lights onto Highway 220 to Tabernacle Baptist Church for the service of Robert “Dick” Elam. Dick and his family lived on my grandfather’s farm with its barns, white-faced cattle, watermelons, and cotton. It was my blessing to know Dick, his brothers Jessie Lee and Joe Boy, and cousin Jabe. We were comrades in arms united in our quests to knock down red wasp nests, catch bluegills, dine on tomato-red persimmons, and swim and fish in ponds sometimes blue, sometimes muddy.

Our years of joy began in 1955. It was a time of blissful ignorance unsullied by politics, 24-hour news cycles, and the arrogant elite who feel obligated to enlighten you. The embers of the Old South were growing as cold and gray as Nash’s ashes, but we were oblivious to all that. For us it was a time to get up hay, get up cattle, play baseball with axe handles, share meals and Co Colas, and sit on the old home’s porch and share stories come lightning bug time. In breathing the incense of hay, manure, and earthworms, in battling wasps and riding through pastures in Granddad’s old jalopy two of us bonded.

About the same age, Jessie Lee and I became fast friends. When I think of my grandfather’s farm and I often do, I think of Jessie Lee, but I never call him Jessie Lee. He’s Sweetie Boy, the name my grandfather gave him for his pleasant demeanor. Over the years, Sweetie and I never lost touch; the slender thread of friendship never broke. To this day when we reminisce, Sweetie holds my hand. When I think of my grandfather’s farm, I see the old two-story house where we shared good times.

The years burned many a day and then I got the call that Sweetie’s brother, Dick, had passed, and memories from that old home rose like spirits and filled me to the brim.

–

When I entered Tabernacle Baptist Church Dick’s open casket pulled me toward it. Draped across the casket was a gold satin ribbon with four words: “Number 1 Auto Mechanic.” When I looked down at my 80-year old friend, the face of a 15-year-old looked up at me. Neither age nor death had changed the broad, noble brow and handsome face I had known so well so many years ago. Being five years older, Dick was my original hero, someone I looked up to.

That 15-year-old face pulled up memories from many an evening on the old home’s porch. Dick would cling to a support near the steps and swing around and lean toward me. We talked about the scary man down the road. “Watch out. He’ll get you when the sun goes down.” As I looked at the Number 1 Auto Mechanic I remembered happiness, laughter, and the unfettered joy of knowing we had all summer to explore the farm.

At 11:00 a.m. Homegoing Services for Robert “Dick” Elam Sr. began with the processional. In came the pallbearers, honorary pallbearers, and flower bearers. In came the bereaved family, who went straightaway to the coffin. They stood shoulder to shoulder touching the coffin, kissing their loved one, and crying. And then they went to the pews.

I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. —2 Timothy 4:7.

Now came prayer, music and clapping, and words of remembrance, more tears and music and throughout it all exhortations—“God is good. We’re just passing through.”

Music worthy of a recording studio filled the air. The preacher stepped forth. “Look at your neighbor, right and left, and say it: “God is good. We’re just passing through.”

People testified. One speaker, effecting a gravelly voice recalled how Dick gave a young father advice.

“You spend every coin in your pocket. You need to keep some. What you gonna do when yo girls want some ice cream?”

“God is good. We’re just passing through.”

Sweetie’s time to speak came. A box of tissues sat in the window sill next to my pew. I reached for it.

Pastor Robert Elam Jr. delivered the eulogy, and the recessional took place.

–

By 12:18 p.m. the service was over, but for 78 minutes I experienced the most humanity I’ve encountered in my life. Music, singing, exhortations, call-and-response, tears, and wails spoke to me in a way nothing else has. No laws, no leaders, no politicians, nothing has ever affected me like those 78 minutes did. I’ve never undergone a religious experience, but this service will do until one comes along. It resurrected the refrain from the Allman Brothers’ “Revival.” People can you feel it? Love is everywhere. I felt it and it was.

When I set foot outside Tabernacle Baptist Church, I was not the same man. Something inside changed. A kind of peace had come to dwell within me. I still have it.

God is good. We’re just passing through.

My grandfather’s farm no longer exists. Oh, the land and ponds and barns exist (the one I knew best burnt I heard), but the farm and the times I knew gave way; they just gave way. They live on in memory, though, and Sweetie and I are the only ones left who live those childhood farm days. We live them still and only when Sweetie and I are both gone will they too be gone.

April 20 life and memories of life rose up in me just off Highway 220. It was, as I say, the most humanity I’ve ever experienced. And when I say humanity, I mean genuine love for one another.

The day after Dick’s service I went back to his grave. I wanted a bit more time to remember my hero and his brother, Sweetie, who’s like a brother to me. Of all the graves at Tabernacle Baptist Church, Dick’s sits nearest Highway 220. In the still of a country day when crows and jays break the silence, in the peace of rural life when nothing it seems will ever change I know the Number 1 Auto Mechanic feels the wheels rumbling by … people just passing through. They could be you; they could be strangers. All are just passing through.

 

—I’m indebted to Sweetie for giving me permission to share my thoughts on his brother’s service and times the likes of which we will never see again.

 

Photos by Tom Poland.

Georgia native Tom Poland writes a weekly column about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and culture and speaks frequently to groups in the South. Governor Henry McMaster conferred the Order of the Palmetto upon Tom, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor, stating, “His work is exceptional to the state.” Poland’s work appears in books, magazines, journals, and newspapers throughout the South.

Visit Tom’s website at www.tompoland.net

Email him at [email protected]