My Father's Angels

I wasn't paying attention at the time to the good example my father 

set. He wasn't consciously "setting a good example" -- he was 

just living life according to his values.

It was the 1950s in a small Middle Georgia farm town. Our family 

owned a clothing store in the middle of the main business block 

downtown. Six days a week, 8am until 6pm (9pm on Saturday), my 

father presided over his business. And sometimes an angel would 

come to our store.

I didn't recognize those visitors as angels. Neither did my mother, 

who accepted my father's decisions but referred to Daddy's angels

 as "bums". She was concerned that they painted hobo marks to 

guide others to my father. My father was, and still is, an extremely 

kind man. He bought them lunch.

I guess Daddy knew Mama's opinion and took precautions in 

case any individual "angel" might actually be an alcoholic. He 

would have a friendly, encouraging conversation with the 

person, who was shabby and obviously down on his luck.

Then Daddy would walk him across the street to the Coffee 

Cup Cafe and pay for him to eat the daily special, a hearty 

meal. Depending on how the conversation was going, Daddy 

would sometimes sit and have lunch with him.

Another variation on this theme was sometimes Daddy would 

bring the man to our house to do yard work to earn a bus

 ticket. Mama would feed him a good home cooked meal but 

would serve it to him in the kitchen or on the back steps.

Daddy explained his theory of angels to his children this 

way: "It's Biblical. Sometimes God sends an angel among men

 unawares, to test us. How we behave toward the least of his

 children is how we treat Him."

I remember chuckling at my "naive" father's actions later 

when I got more grown and more savvy. I laughed that he 

got it backwards about who the angel was.

Now that I am middle-aged, I'm proud to say that I realize 

how blessed I am to have such a wise and good man, Joseph 

Van Johnson, as my father and my teacher.

I am also doubly blessed to be meeting angels now myself. 

More than once I have recognized God Himself staring back at 

me from the face of a homeless mentally ill person. I understand 

now that my father was respecting the spirit of God that is within 

each of us.

Author

~ Kay Johnson McCrary~
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