Flying Blind

I am having trouble giving this thought process a title; maybe it will work itself out as I get started. Maybe, “The best laid plans of mice and men.” Or to quote the song; “God is in Control.”

One of the memorable trips that Sweet Pea and I took during the NASCAR show car stage of our lives had a couple unique twists to it. We typically would leave one show site and head toward the next one. Some shows had two or three days between them; it did get to be busy sometimes but I would never complain about doing that job.

This particular trip was in the winter. We just had about ten days off and came back to Bill Elliott Ford in Georgia to pick up our truck and trailer. The gentleman who scheduled our shows informed us that there was a show to do for a McDonald’s owner in Tyler, Texas. So off we go; feeling pretty good about ourselves, having done about seventy five shows by this time. We were confident in our ability. We were expecting a smooth trip to Texas, and after ten days in Ohio enduring a blizzard, the weather would certainly be better.

Twist number one would come in Vicksburg, Mississippi. We were parking in the hotel parking lot; the local news was talking about a storm moving in from the west, with the possibility of rain and ice. By nature I like volatile weather, Sweet Pea does not enjoy even the mention of it. After retiring for the evening, I knew Sweet Pea would be up all night thinking about the weather. Sure enough, at about six thirty in the morning she awakened me and mentioned that the rain had begun and it was near freezing.

After checking out, we pulled out of the parking lot and the exit went right to the on ramp for I-20 west. At that moment we could see straight up the westbound lanes of the bridge crossing the mighty Mississippi, and there were cars and trucks headed in every direction. Trucks were sliding into the guard rails on either side of the bridge; some cars had stopped and couldn’t get moving again. I didn’t have time to look over at Sweet Pea but in my mind I knew she was about to cry. In that instant my foot did not leave the accelerator; “the foot” knew that to stop was trouble. We moved slowly but steadily up the bridge, never turning the steering wheel, never spinning a tire. At the peak of the bridge I took a deep breath and looked over at Sweet Pea who was crying and praying or praying and crying, I don’t know which, but it worked either way. On reaching the top, one quick breath was all we could get in because going down the other side was just as dangerous but, God again protected us. That image of cars and trucks on the bridge that morning is one I will never forget; nor will I forget God’s favor toward us in that situation.

After the “ice-capades” we had endured; getting to Tyler and checked into a motel was what we needed. We were still a day early and could kick back a few hours. That evening we called the contact person to find out the details of where we would set up the McDonalds Race Car.


The young lady at the door was our contact person for McDonalds; she informed us that the show would be at the convention center just outside of town. She wasn’t sure if the McDonalds owner would be able to make it to the show, but everything was ready for us to set up the next day.

The plan was to set the car inside [After another minor “ice-capade” on the way to the convention center, can you believe it, an ice storm hit Tyler Texas that night]. As it turned out we set up the car in a covered breezeway leading into the main show room. Everyone who entered the show had to walk right by the McDonalds Ford Thunderbird. Our God was there in Tyler Texas looking after us.

The second twist came when the McDonalds owner, his wife and daughter, and a friend of the daughter, came in to the show. For this story they shall be nameless. Sweet Pea and I were introduced to them and we enjoyed a great day of talking to people about the race car and meeting some local celebrities, one was Earl Campbell. Enough name dropping,

The McDonalds owner and his wife spent the day with us. They seemed a little reserved but we had just met them. They were dressed in McDonalds Racing shirts and jackets and seemed to be real NASCAR fans. Sometime toward the end of the show we were discussing how and when we would get the car loaded up and whether we would stay in Tyler that night or head out back to toward Georgia, when we were asked to have supper with the owner and his family after the show.

We all pitched in and put away the hats, tee shirts, and other stuff for sale. I brought the truck and trailer around to the half empty parking lot and we fired up the car and drove it out of the building and into the trailer. Five minutes to tie the car down inside the trailer and we were off to supper and an experience we would never forget.

A great supper, and chit chat about what we do, then chit chat about their long history with McDonalds, and we are off to their place to relax for a while. Once we were at their house the mood changed. Somber would be the word. What we found out was that their son had recently committed suicide. This is a good, Godly family, at a loss for why this would happen.

That weekend, God intersected a hurting family with a couple that had an empty tool box [as Sweet Pea would say], and all we could offer was what was needed, an ear to listen, arms for a hug, and agreement in prayer that our God would keep this family in the midst of a great storm of life. The rest of the evening was a prayer meeting. There were new friends praying together, with an audience of the sustaining God. That weekend two families were “Flying Blind but Never Alone.”

Jim Mussetter
5/10/10

Sweet Pea and Me

Let me give you a snapshot of my Sweet Pea. This in no way is a finished portrait of her. It is only one page in a book of over thirty years of being my best friend. Oops I think I mixed my metaphors.

After nearly twenty years of marital bliss [my view may not coincide exactly with hers], we were given a chance to travel around the country with a Winston Cup show car. This would be my dream job, Sweet Pea wasn’t as sure. We needed to prepare to leave our house in Mesa, Arizona, find someone to handle the rental on it while we were gone, for who knows how long, then, drive to Atlanta to start a new season in our lives.

You may be surprised one day as God leads you into a new season of life. He definitely rocked our world that year. Hopefully other stories will give details of God’s hand of favor and protection, and blessing over our lives during these years.

One of our first hurdles to overcome was that Sweet Pea was not at all comfortable with my driving. Now, she is setting in a pickup truck with a forty foot trailer behind it and me driving. After the euphoria of preparing to start this journey, Sweet Pea’s stress level went thru the roof. No pun intended there of course.

By the time our first three shows were over, we had driven from Knoxville to Philadelphia, found out that our credit card was cancelled, the truck broke down on the way, and finally we were on the beltway in Washington D C at 3:00 in the morning wondering if we would ever get back to Atlanta.

When our first weekend in the Show Car Business was over, Sweet Pea was still talking to me. That was more than I was expecting after our beginning.

The Moment

The latest thing I am working on will need to be cleared with Sweet Pea. This Indian Lake story of my early teenage years is one of youthful exuberance.

Background:
Dad and mom would rent a three-bedroom cabin at Turkeyfoot Landing nearly every summer I can remember. With five children and Grandma Nora, friends from dads job coming up one or two days with their children, there could be twenty or twenty-five people sleeping in that cabin on any given night.

Detail:
On one of our two-week summer vacations, I woke up on another bright sunny morning with nothing better to do than have breakfast and think about when we would be allowed to go to the Walnut Islands and swim. Like most other days we had to wait until we had eaten dinner and rested [because you cannot go swimming on a full stomach]. I have decided that this rest was more important to the adults than to my digestive track.

This day we piled into the boat and took the long trip up the channel and then across the lake to anchor just off the beach as usual. The water was only about chest high and the bottom was hard pack sand and easy on the feet. Now here is where it gets a little fuzzy, either, I jumped out of the boat onto someone, or someone jumped out of another boat onto me. In that instant I was face to face with a girl!!

HOW IT BEGAN

How many of you remember citizen band radios? In the year of our Lord 1975 or there about, I entered the world of cb’s.My first one was a Robyn mobile, 23 channels, and it had a blue face. If you know what that is, congratulations.I remember buying that radio from a local shop there in Xenia, Ohio. I knew the owner as Spender. That was his cb handle. That little hole in the wall is also where I met people with names [handles] like Bugs Bunny, Gerty, Roofer, and Tar Baby, Clifton Curley, Lawman, Nova Nine, Blue Bird, Pepsi, and in my family there was Wildfire, Frosty, and Windjammer. What a crazy life we lived in those days. You meet someone on the radio and the next thing you know you are friends for life.After having that radio for a couple of months, my EGO decided that I needed one of those chrome power microphones that I would see in peoples home. You know the tall one that looked like a lollipop. On a desk in front of a base radio they looked impressive. But on the dash of my Chevrolet it looked completely COOL!!!!!Time goes on and technology changes. With the little I know about things like “my space”, things aren’t that different. The only difference between "then and now” might be that with cb’s you could use you imagination to determine what someone might look like.

11/20/08
by

Life and times at turkeyfoot landing

I may not have lived life to the fullest but I have enjoyed most of it. Some of my earliest memories are of summer vacations at Indian Lake. Thats where I learned to love fishing. When I was tall enough to hold a small cane pole my dad let me walk along the shore and fish between the boats to catch little bluegills. Needless to say I was hooked at that young age.

As I became older and bolder with my cane pole, my dad became wiser and started grinding the barbs off of the small hooks I was using. It seems to me there were many times he had to cut the hook out of my finger.

One reason I bring this up for my first blog post is that I was at Indian Lake a couple of weeks ago and took a walk through the old boat landing there at Turkeyfoot . Of course it's changed a
lot over fifty years but I remember it like yesterday. The best thing was, a dad walking along the shore with two little boys with cane poles, fishing between the boats.

I walked by them and smiled, and said to the dad, trust me on this one, they will never forget.