When I Wore S's on My Collar
A Life Journal
by
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Cemetery Sumter, South Carolina - 1972 The deceased's family was a large one, and a considerable number of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, elderly siblings, and a host of friends and acquaintances gathered in the funeral home chapel to pay their last respects. A Baptist preacher officiated at the service, and I delivered the funeral message. The family also asked me to conduct the committal service. The burial was to take place in a family plot by a country church where the deceased had been a member during her youth. The funeral director had arranged for a Sumter police officer to escort the funeral procession to the city limits, where a county deputy sheriff would meet us and guide us to the cemetery. When we got to the city limits, the motorcycle cop turned around and headed back to town, but to my dismay, no deputy was there to escort us the rest of the way. I was driving the lead car just in front of the family limousine, which preceded the hearse. I had no idea where I was going. I led the procession for several miles before stopping to ask for directions. When I pulled to the side of the road, the thirty or forty cars behind me did the same. I walked back to the family car and asked the driver if he knew how to get to the cemetery. He didn't have a clue. And no one else in the car knew where the place was. "All I can tell you," a daughter said, "is that the cemetery is beside a little white frame church somewhere off Raccoon Road." Well, I knew where Raccoon Road was, but scores of unmarked side roads intersected the twenty-mile stretch. Up and down those byways, I went with the procession trailing along behind. Most of the roads were unpaved, and the dust that my car and those that followed stirred up created a giant brown powdery mushroom that spread over the caravan for a country mile. Every time I saw a church, I slowed down and looked for a cemetery nearby. When I slowed down, the procession slowed down, hoping, I am sure, that we had finally arrived. When I accelerated, the rest disappointedly followed suit. This went on for what seemed like hours. But finally, I discovered a little white church with a graveyard beside it and an open grave with a casket cradle set in place. There were floral arrangements placed all around the site. But no one was there. No grave diggers, no funeral home staff, no one to confirm that someone had prepared the site for the dearly departed whose body was now being removed from the hearse and carried by six travel-weary pallbearers to what they assumed would be its final resting place. After all I had put the mourners through, I was not about to tell them that I was not sure this was the place for which we had been searching all afternoon. I had visions of them turning into a mob, attacking me, and using that freshly dug grave to accommodate the disposal of my ravaged body. So, I proceeded with the committal service. When I got to "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes," the funeral director appeared from nowhere, pulled the lever, and lowered the casket into the ground. The Baptist preacher sprinkled dirt, and family members dropped flower petals on the descending box. On the way back to the car, the Baptist preacher said, "Sister Jones was a wonderful, godly lady. Many were blessed by her life." It wasn't until I was almost home that the preacher's words registered - and I blurted, "Wasn't that Sister Brown that we just buried?" I still wonder if maybe we buried the right woman in the wrong grave. Or the wrong woman in the right grave. Or the wrong woman in the wrong grave. Or ... oh well.
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About the Book
When I Wore S's On My Collar is a collection of selected stories gleaned from the author's life journals over five decades. The stories tell about some of the unforgettable people who impacted his life during his childhood and teen years in Tennessee and the Carolinas and the thirty-one years he served as an officer in The Salvation Army in numerous appointments in the southern United States and the Caribbean. Some of the stories are funny, or at least they caused him to chuckle when the events happened and again when he wrote about them. Some have sad elements, of course, because they deal with loss, loneliness, and hurt. But mostly, they are stories of people who blessed, humored, challenged, inspired, and encouraged him and others. Some were characters, some saints, some both, many of them possessing not only the joy of the Lord but the ability to laugh at circumstances, at self, at the idiosyncrasies and imperfections in even the most pious – seeing humor in both the insignificant and the momentous occurrences of life, but doing so without taking for granted or diminishing the sacredness of things spiritual and eternal.
About the Author
Henry Arrowood served as an officer and ordained minister in The Salvation Army for thirty-one years, the first twelve of which were spent as a corps officer/administrator and pastor in four field appointments in the Carolinas. In the 1980s, he served as regional commander for The Salvation Army in the Bahamas, followed by administrative and leadership positions at the divisional and territorial levels of The Salvation Army USA Southern Territory. The culmination of his ministry and service at the territorial level came as evangelism and adult ministries secretary. In that capacity, Henry also served as the executive producer for the evangelical organization’s worldwide radio ministry, Wonderful Words of Life. Henry completed his service as an officer in The Salvation Army in 1998 at fifty-four years of age and began a second career as an assessment, planning, and resource development consultant for The Salvation Army and other non-profit organizations throughout the United States and the Caribbean. In retirement, Henry lives with his lovely wife, Rhenda, and best friend, Rascal (a Maltese), in Mooreland, Oklahoma.