My Dad

Today is my dad's birthday. He is a special dad. I can think of lots of words to describe him.
Intelligent, big, compassionate, tender hearted, family oriented, giving, and the list could go on and on and on.

My dad has always dropped everything for me whether it was changing a tire or lending me a shoulder to cry on. My needs came first. He is definately my hero. It was always a problem when I was dating. No one measured up. Greg certainly doesn't measure up (though he's a close second) -- but that's just something you deal with. I guess there's only one perfect man.

I'd like to share with you an column that was in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette on December 27, 2002 This is Charles Allbright's column titled the Arkansas Traveler. I think he's since been replaced or forcibly retired...

Ruby-throated resuce

Larry Renfroe and his wife, Betty, live at the foot of Crow Mountain, the western end inPope County. Some famous people are hiding out on Crow Mountain. Among them Leland Duvall, our longtime friend and mentor. Duvall wouldn't recognize his fame if a UPS guy stood at the front door and delivered it in a song.
Larry Renfroe fixes things, notably air conditioning systems. And just about anything else capable of collapsing. Larry was opening the huge overhead door to his shop when -- but hold up, and let John Joe Harris tell it.
"Larry is a friend. To my good fortune, I get to hear his stories. Over Waffle House coffee, with hashbrowns, scattered, smothered with chunks."
Sounds like scrambled eggs and something. These two boys, John Joe and Larry, they are too fast for those of us trapped in thickening larger towns. John Joe here helps Larry get the shop door opened.
"Just as he riased the door he spotted something in the middle of the concrete floor. A small bird. ruby and green. A hummingbird."
Larry Renfroe reached down and picked the bird up. The bird trembled. Holding it gently in his palm, Renfroe took a couple of steps toward the shop's open door and daylight.
The trembling bird gathered strenth and flew out of his rescuer's palm. Only to plop down in the grass just outside the shop.
Renfroe approached the bird and picked it up a second time. He would report to John Harris later, wolfing down whatever they wolf down, the bird weighed "no more than this," a small plastic container with the cream poured out of it.
Apparently when the bird flew into the shop the previous evening, it managed to get entagled in a spider web.
"Larry said the silver strand of web was wrapped around one of the hummingbird's feet, and also one of its wings."
Mr. Fix Everything. "using a pair of tweezers, he unwrapped the web from the trembling victim's parts. The instant it became free, the tiny bird took off with a buzz."
Who knows what the hummingbird estimated its rescuer's size to be? Children have looked up at Larry Renfroe -- how's the weather up there?
Larry's answer, "I'm 5 feet 21."
We have not yet had our mornings replenishment of hash browns, scattered, smothered with chunks. But 5 feet 21 sounds a lot like 6 feet 9. Land in one of that giant's palms, ruby and green are gonna give way to white as a sheet and yellow as the nearest brick road.
John Joe Harris and his wife, Karen, took disclosure of this rescue with them out to Phoenix. The Harrises keep reflecting on it, out there in the Valley of the Sun.
"We'll always be Arkansas Travelers" -- late of Russellville and Dardanelle -- "but right now we're spending time in Arizona, two of 3 million warm bodies' keeping their bodies warm.
John Joe cherishes his friendship with Larry Renfroe.
"This is a wonderful story, just by itself. but my take on it is, this is the way we are. We get all tangled up with our lives until it gets so bad we plop down in the grass and call out to God."
God doesn't care what your color is. If so, all His children would look the same.
"He reaches down and holds us in His everlasting arms. We stop our quivering and trembling. God untagles the mess we've made of our lives, then off we go. Forgiven and free."