1902 Silver Dollar
Grandpa couldn’t get his grandson Jimmy to go to church with him, but he had no problem getting
him to go fishing. Jimmy said; Grandpa- you buy the bait, because I know how you are, once you
get me out there where I’m trapped- your going to make me listen to one of your sermons. Jimmy
was right and that was the plan. Grandpa had years of experience at being a good preacher.
Once the bait was on the hook and in the water, Grandpa said; I remember going fishing here with
my Dad. He told me about the time he tried to throw a silver dollar across the river. “Some where
out there about the middle of the river, is a 1902 silver dollar.” I heard that story everytime we
went fishing together and I thought it was just one of those fish stories.
Until the Summer of 1949, when the rains stopped, all the cattle were dying because there was no
grass or hay to feed them. The crops in the fields were about to dry up and this river was so low
you could step across it about any place. Everybody was hoping it would rain, except the bankers.
Dad didn’t go to church much back then. He was one of those that only showed up at Easter and
Christmas time. In other words, Dad was a slacker- just like I use to be and you are now.
One Sunday he went fishing and I went with him, you didn’t need a fishing pole. All you needed
was a pair of hands to scoop up the fish and put them in an empty feed sack to carry home. I was
after this big old carp, you could see his back sticking up out of the shallow water. I grabbed him
lots of times, but carp are pretty hard to hold on to. I sat down for a few minutes to catch my
breath and Dad started hooping and a hollering.
I ran down the river to see if he got snake bit or something. I asked; Dad, Whats wrong? Dad
said; Nothing, I just got right with the Lord! At the time I didn’t know what getting right with the Lord
meant. On the way back up the river to pick up my sack of fish, we saw something up ahead of us
on the ground with the Sun reflecting off of it. It was a 1902 silver dollar in the middle of one of my
footprints where I had ran down the river to see what was wrong. My mad dash had uncovered it
from it’s hiding place. Surely this was the one my Dad had thrown years before.
Dad took that 1902 silver dollar with him to church that Sunday and dropped it the offering plate.
Mom’s mouth dropped open and I believe her eyeballs almost popped out. If looks could kill- Dad
would have been a dead man that morning. She let him have it all the way home and was still at it
way up in the evening. She said she wasn’t - moppin, sewing, washing, or cookin no more. The
only thing she was going to do from now on, is sit on the porch and swing.
Our field was right in front of the house, with a crop belonging to each of our neighbors on both
sides of ours. We sat there and watched a big black cloud come in the from the west. Hail the size
of golfballs, beat our neighbors crop into the ground and didn’t leave a single plant standing as it
slowly moved across their field- heading straight for ours. When it reached the fence that
separating their field from ours, it changed into rain. Not a plant in our field was harmed. As it
crossed the fence into our other neighbors field, it turned back into hail and beat his crop to
pieces- just like it had done to the first neighbors field.
When this was all over, Mom got up and went in the house and fixed one of the finest meals that
she had ever cooked in her life. We didn’t miss any more Church on Sundays after that and Mom
didn’t say nothing else about what was dropped in the offering plate after that. She was known to
drop part of her egg money in there at times herself. If the church was going to do something
useful with the money.
I forgot all this stuff by the time I went out on my own. I stopped going to church for about 20 years
and stopped talking with the Lord as much, then less and less- until not at all. One day I felt like I
was on top of the World and the next day it was like the World was laying on top of me. It all fell
on me at once. I love you and thats why I keep talking to you about the Lord. It may not happen
while I’m alive to see it. If not, than I’ll be watching from above. I’ll probably be realing in a 9 foot
Bass out of the Crystal sea about that time, but an Angel or somebody will let me know.
Grandpa left a little something for Jimmy when he died, a 1902 silver dollar. When it was handed
to Jimmy- it was like the whole World fell on top of him and he remembered all the sermons that
Grandpa told him on their many fishing trips. The following Sunday, Jimmy dropped the coin in the
offering plate on his way to the front of the church, to repent of his sins and to turn his life over to
the Lord Jesus Christ. .....Nothing or nobody is ever too lost for the Lord to find or make use of.
