Wednesday, I drove to Alpharetta, Georgia, the headquarters of our denomination’s North American Mission Board. My first time to see this wonderful new building in the midst of a pristine environment. One block from Andy Stanley’s Northpoint Community Church. Living in an old city, New Orleans, and one that tends to be rustic and rather dirty and these days, in great need, I find myself wondering how one gets up in the morning in his neatly manicured world and goes to work in a shiny new building where everything shines and everything works that is supposed to.

Thursday noon through Friday noon, six of us from New Orleans joined with Dr. David Hankins (Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention) and his right-hand man Mike Canady, as we conferred with Dr. Geoffrey Hammond (Executive Director of NAMB) and all of his senior staffers on the subject of a longterm partnership directed toward the rebuilding of the city, the church, and the ministries of New Orleans. My choice here is to write almost nothing about this meeting or take two hours to tell everything. I’ve just returned home, it’s late Sunday night, and I’m tired beyond belief, so I’ll tell the story later.

Friday, I drove to my folks’ home at Nauvoo, Alabama, taking the cross-country route from Alpharetta through Marietta, Cedartown, over to Piedmont, Alabama, then to Gadsden, Cullman, Double Springs, and home.

Saturday was the alumni meeting for Winston County High School at Double Springs, where my siblings and I attended from 7th through 12th grades. (Ron graduated in ’54, Glenn in ’55, Patricia in ’56, I in ’58, Carolyn in ’60, and Charlie in ’62) Over the 50 years since my graduation, I think I’ve attended three or four of these school-wide alumni gatherings, but have been to quite a few of my class’s reunions. The class of ’58 will tell anyone who pauses to listen that ours is the best class ever.

The class of ’58 had maybe 55 or so graduates. Over these years 18 have died. We had 24 there Saturday afternoon, including Quinton Daniels who drove in from Kalamazoo, Michigan, the day before, and–how about this one–Harold Brownlow who flew in from Indonesia.

Couple of reflections here….

How to make a class stay together after graduation? It takes leadership. And our class has the best. Sally Moody keeps up with everyone, writes to us, sends birthday cards, and such. When we get together, she calls on Dot Shipman and another half-dozen class members, all of whom live close in. That’s the secret. Someone has to take the lead and keep in touch.

One of the things this team did was to prepare 18 helium-filled balloons for the classmembers who are no longer living. At one point, we all walked outside the meeting hall and called their names and turned loose of the balloons. I had never done this before, so was not prepared for what happened next. The balloons rose swiftly and stayed in sight for nearly 5 minutes, but they always stayed together. At one point, they spread out into the shape of a triangle or wedge. Then they formed themselves into the big dipper (two of us noticed that), and after that, a cross.

We sang hymns together, prayed together, and were entertained by The Silvertones and a group of teenagers who sang 1950s songs just the way we remembered them. Just in case anyone thinks of us as too old-fashioned, I remind you that the “Happy Days” television series was our generation. That was our music. And our foolishness.

Them was the days.

Earlier at the schoolwide alumni meeting, Principal Jeff Cole amazed the 200 or more in attendance listing the various awards students had received this year, most of them statewide. I told him later that most of these competitions and awards did not exist when we were in school, and how impressed everyone was. He said the exact words a great principal should: “We have great teachers. They are the best.”

I saw the same thing Sunday morning at New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church, where our family has worshiped since around 1903 without interruption (starting with my maternal grandparents). The youth minister, Derek, a student at the Free Will Baptist College in Nashville, told of the youngsters who won various levels in the statewide competitions in Northport Saturday. Some won first place statewide in vocal solo, in vocal duet, in instrumentals, in photography, and so on. The national competition will be later this summer in Charleston, West Virginia. Derek mentioned that this young lady in the congregation is the “defending national champion in photography” and this young man “defending national champion in piano,” and such. To say I was awed is putting it mildly.

In both the high school and in our church, nothing like any of this went on in the 1950s. We rarely went outside our county for anything, the church never thought of hiring someone to be a youth minister, and the schools seemed satisfied if they got us through the basics of the three Rs. I would not want to be a teenager again with all they have facing them, but I am so pleased to see our school and our church getting some things done so well for today’s youth.

I used to argue with deacon Bill Mayfield at our Kenner church over the New Orleans drivers. He argued that they are no worse here than anywhere else. I said otherwise. Case in point. Wednesday when I was driving the I-285 monster around Atlanta, even though the traffic was heavy and fierce, everyone was respectful and at no time did we seem to be in danger. Then I got home.

Driving into New Orleans on Interstate 10, as the four or five lanes grew congested, twice drivers in the slow lane–the far right–pulled that little suicide maneuver and would have killed some of us had the Lord not kept me alert so I could yield to them. You’ve seen it happen, I’m sure. Just ahead of you in the right lane, someone is driving slow, so a driver rushes toward them at breakneck speed with the intent of whipping into your lane just in front of you, a split second before rear-ending the slow-mover in their lane. Had I held my speed in the center lane, you would be reading my obituary in Tuesday’s paper.

Welcome to New Orleans. Stay alert. The highways here are no place for the timid or anyone who cannot drive defensively.