Fire, Water, or Sunshine?

Christians don’t fall asleep in a fire.  Christians don’t fall asleep in deep water. Christians do fall asleep in the sunshine.  When the good Lord gives us blessings, we should be grateful, for God is being gracious to us.  For if we neglect Him in the good times, He must send difficult times to bring us back to Himself.

Derick McIlheny

   We had several “characters” in Riley Hall, but Derick was my favorite.  Derick was from Texas and larger than life.  He was loud and clumsy and … well actually a dork.  But Derick fancied himself as a ladies’ man.  He had a swagger about him that was comical to see.  But he oozed confidence.  Derick wasn’t very smart and had to study hard for every “C” that he made.  He wanted to be an elementary school teacher.

   Derick had a great plan for picking up girls.  He had a giant golf sized umbrella, and on rainy days, he hung around the dining hall after lunch offering to walk girls back to their dorms.  But soon the girls were on to him.  Most would rather run home in the rain than walk with Derick.  Each fall, Derick had a new batch of freshmen girls who had no idea who he was.  He went to work quickly.

   Derick dated a local high school girl who came to church on the Sunday school bus.  But Sunday night, the church bus didn’t run, and Derick was without his girl.  No problem.  Derick left early and rode the city bus to downtown where he changed buses and rode to St. Elmo, where his girl lived.  Then they both rode the city bus back downtown to get a transfer back to Highland Park in time for church.  The route cost Derick 12 tickets to and from church, but no worry - at least he had a date on Sunday night.  Derick had to hurry after church to make the return trip because the city buses stopped running about 9 PM.  Often, on his way back to school, he would get stuck downtown at 9 PM and have to use a taxi to get back to school.  A small price to pay to be with his girl.

   Derick ended up graduating from college and then with a master’s degree, he taught bilingual elementary school in Texas.  Not too shabby!

Frank Barlow

   My first semester in college had me in a crowded dorm room.  The new dormitory wasn’t quite finished yet and there were five of us crowded into one small room.  And what a hodge podge of boys we were.  Denny was tall, lanky and easy going.  Tom was also easy going, but to be more accurate, he was downright lazy.  Mike and Frank were the two athletic karate type.  They weren’t real bright, but they didn’t have to be with their karate skills.  And then there was me.

   I was the only one who was an early riser.  As a freshman, I always wanted to be on time, and the others used me as their alarm clock.  In the evening, Frank told me what time he wanted to get up, but in the morning, he didn’t really want to get up.  Actually, he was easy to wake up, but when he woke up, he woke up swinging and chopping and kicking every way there was.  Frank was an upperclassman and got the only single bed in the center of the room.  When it was time to wake up Frank, I knelt behind the footboard of his bed, reached over and carefully shook his foot.  Then I moved quickly out of range as Frank swung and chopped and kicked at whatever danger was awakening him.

   One morning, for some strange reason, Tom woke up before me.  He was in a fog and slid off his top bunk bed and lost his balance.  He landed on the floor and then tumbled onto Frank, who commenced to swing and chop and kick Tom to pieces.  That day, I saw Tom move faster to get out of Frank’s way than he ever had, or ever did, the rest of the years that I knew him.