Paul Eason's Wonderful Life

What Matters Most….Commentary by Jim High

Actually this column is about two lives, the wonderful life of Paul Eason, and the wonderful life given to me and thousands of others by Scoutmaster Paul Eason.  This month he will celebrate his 90^th birthday.  I first met Paul 60 years ago when I was eleven years old in Boy Scout Troop 12 sponsored by the First Methodist Church.  Back then Paul seemed old to me, but he was only 30.  The troop met in some left over space on the second floor behind the organ.

Paul had already started the monthly campout program that continues to this day.  Once a month in rain, snow, heat or extreme cold Troop 12 was going camping.  I remember in those days we would walk up North Madison Street, which was mostly gravel beyond Highland Circle and camp out at Livingston Lake, just across Green Street in those wooded  hills and hollows.  We went other places also like Shiloh National Battlefield, Camp Yocona, Ruff’s Farm, and every May after school was out we would take a special trip usually to the beach in Florida and stay at some military base.

Paul’s record of monthly campouts without a miss is nationally recognized as the longest in all of Scouting.  And he literally helped hundreds of boys who got their Eagle Award only because of his efforts.  That is certainly true in my case.  Being a fat kid Personal Fitness merit badge was going to be a big hurdle for me when it came to the mile run, and even when I entered Tupelo High School I was not yet an Eagle Scout.  But Paul worked with me at Robins Field every afternoon for at least a month until I passed that final requirement and became an Eagle Scout.

Paul worked with every boy in some special way.  He always seemed to know just what any of us needed.  And we did fun unusual things, too.  Not many boy scouts get Bird Study merit badge, but Paul took a group of us every Sunday morning at dawn for an hour or two before Sunday school for nearly a year, and we would go all over Lee County looking for different birds until we had found and identified the 50 birds required. 

After college I returned to Tupelo and to Troop 12 working side by side with Paul Eason as his Assistant Scoutmaster for 19 years.  That’s 228 more monthly campouts and I made most of them.  Several years ago we had a big reunion campout at Camp Yocona on the occasion of Troop 12’s 500^th Monthly Campout.  The record continues and totals almost 800 now.  Maybe I’ll live go on the 1,000^th campout, which will be really something.

After many years of going to Camp Yocona for a week each summer, Paul and I decided to take the troop to Pickwick Lake for several years for a week’s campout instead.  I had the job of quartermaster and went to Piggly Wiggly in Iuka each morning during the week to buy the groceries to feed 50 hungry boys three meals, which they had to cook for themselves.  The folks at the Piggly Wiggly in Iuka still remember me all these years later.  I guess they are hoping I’ll show up with three helpers and buy nine or ten baskets of food every day for a week.  We had a grand time and the boys passed many of their merit badges, plus all of them spent time skiing behind several ski boats that we had at our disposal during the week.

I could tell a thousand more stories, but must include a word about our annual campouts at Tishomingo State Park where we would build a Monkey Bridge across Bear Creek.  This was a rope bridge that allowed us to cross the creek by walking on the rope without getting wet, unless of course you fell in.  That bridge and the twenty foot tall lookout towers that we sometimes built by lashing logs together always gave every boy a real sense of accomplishment.

What Matters Most……….If a person has any true understanding of life they got it from someone.  We got it from Paul Eason, and we learned from him to pass it on.  There are so many people out there who want guidance and who cannot get it.  If you can make a difference for at least one person, then you have tremendous merit indeed.  Paul Eason’ wonderful life made a difference in the lives of thousands.  Happy Birthday, Paul!

© 2011 #22  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

Thinking about Miracles

What Matters Most………………Commentary by Jim High

Reaching the word “Miracle” in the book of quotes I’m reading got me to thinking.  What is a miracle?  Can miracles be explained?  Can what was once considered a miracle in one culture and time be explained in another time and culture?  Is anything really and truly a miracle?  Do miracles occur outside of religious faith?

The most wonderful thing about life is using our minds to ask questions.  If those early humans that wandered out of Africa three or four million years ago had never asked questions, I doubt modern humans would exist today, for it is the questions and the answers they promote that drives the progress of mankind.  If you never ask the questions, you will surely never get an answer or a solution to your problems.  And remember that sometimes the most important question we can ask about anything is, “What if.”

The quote in the miracles section of the book that got me to thinking about miracles was this one by Augustine of Hippo, who lived between 354 and 430 AD.  He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province.  His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.  His quote, “Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to that which is known to us about nature.”  We know so much more about nature now than in the time of Augustine over 1,500 years ago that many things considered miracles in his day are totally understood today.

So what is a miracle by definition?  The dictionary says that a miracle is an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause, and as such is considered the work of God.  So by definition miracles are not something that take place outside of religious beliefs.  But notice that the definition says “all known human or natural powers.”  That word known was what Augustine was talking about.  He knew way back then that miracles don’t contradict natural laws and if they seem to it is because we don’t understand or have not yet discovered the reasons some things happen.

“It was a miracle,” is a phrase we hear a lot about things that really are not miracles at all.  The tornado spared your home and you say, “It’s a miracle.”  It’s too bad about that family next door that didn’t get a miracle.  You find something that was lost for a long time, but was finding it really a miracle or just luck.  We tend to confuse luck with miracles.  If you win a prize in the lottery it was luck not a miracle, regardless of how badly you needed the money.  An even if you are cured of some terrible illness, it was the medicine, not a miracle.  Even if you are miraculously cured without treatment, as sometimes happens, this just means that we don’t know yet how it happened, but someday we will discover enough about nature to understand.

Back in the early 1950’s when I contracted polio and spent a few weeks in Le Bonheur Hospital in Memphis, and then came home without braces or paralysis of any kind, I’m sure that some said it was a miracle.  Some of my family and friends may have even prayed to God for a miracle, and thought they saw one when they saw me well and whole.  But the boy in the room with me at the hospital was not so “lucky” as I was.  Prayers for him did no good and his miracle didn’t arrive.  We must always measure what we might think is a miracle by reality and by those others in the same predicament or with the same problem who didn’t receive a miracle.  As Augustine said, it is our understanding of nature that prevails in life, not miracles.

What Matters Most……….These three quotes capture for me what a miracle really is.

“To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.”  --Abraham Maslow

“To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle.  Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.” –Walt Whitman

“There are two ways to live.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  --Albert Einstein

© 2011 #21  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

My Morning Banana

What Matters Most………………Commentary by Jim High

Bananas are good for you, full of nutrition and non-fattening, unless you make banana pudding with them.  I eat one almost every morning as I have my coffee and read before the sun comes up.  Here’s a tip about bananas – before they get too ripe you can peel them and cut them into little half inch chunks and freeze them, then they taste just like banana ice cream without all the extra calories.

During the summer of 1970, I took a trip to the Far East touring Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines.  It was in the Philippines that I tasted a fresh banana.  The locals were selling them on the side of the road, and they even had different varieties of bananas with different tastes.  If you ever get the chance be sure to try a fresh tree ripened banana.  They are very different from the ones we get that are harvested while still green.

One morning a few weeks back as I was eating my morning banana, I began to think of how many people were involved in providing this banana for me to enjoy.  The sticker on it said “Product of Guatemala”, so I started with the farmer or plantation owner on whose land this banana had grown.  And, of course, all the workers who had tended to the tree, picked the banana, taken it to the processing shed, packed it, made the cardboard shipping box, trucked it to the port, and those who had loaded it on the ship.

Bananas are a regular row crop, so someone had planted that banana tree long ago, and someone provided the banana plant to the farmer.  Even the land on which it was grown had involved other people in the purchase of the land, and the setting up of the plantation.  And since I suspect banana plantations are huge operations many more people are involved in the running and upkeep of the plantation.

I don’t think they make cars and trucks in Guatemala, so another whole host of people somewhere in the world made the cars and truck involved in the transportation of my banana to the port.  And the gas to power those vehicles came from somewhere else as well, provided by yet more people.

The banana boat, maybe cargo ship is a better term, involved many people both in its construction and operation.  As it made its way from Guatemala to Gulfport others were also involved.  Then its cargo of bananas was unloaded and transferred to trucks for shipment to Kroger’s distribution warehouse somewhere, and from there my morning banana made it way to the store in Tupelo.  This process involved hundreds more and maybe thousands of people when you consider all the jobs related to this process in some way.

Even after it arrived at the Tupelo store someone had to receive it and then place it on the banana table for me to select.  The cashier weighed it and charged me for it, and the nice young man who sacked my groceries put it in the plastic bag with my other purchases.  I brought it home to my apartment in a car many other people were involved in making, that ran on gas drilled and refined and shipped from who knows where to Tupelo.

Lastly, after eating my morning banana the peel was place in the garbage to be taken away in a plastic garbage bag made by others in some factory somewhere and put in a landfill that is managed by yet more people.

What Matters Most…..…we need to understand and be aware of how interconnected and dependent on the work and labor of others we all are.  We truly live in a web of connectivity that reaches all around the world.  And it occurred to me that virtually every aspect of my life came about as the result of others’ efforts.  Then I thought of the leather couch I was sitting on, but that is another story.

                  

© 2010 #15  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467