It's A Good Thing

Many, many moons ago, in a land far, far away I was a lonely freshman in college, 250 miles from my family. One day in my first semester I finished classes and rode the city bus to the mall. It’s hard to believe, but back in those days there were not any no-smoking bans. As I was sauntering around the mall I caught a whiff of pipe tobacco. It was the very same-smelling pipe tobacco that my dad smoked while I was growing up. It’s odd because my dad had quit smoking years before, but my brain held on to the association of him and the smell of that particular tobacco. I trailed behind the smoking man for a while just to have a sensory glimpse of something familiar, something from home.

Today, as I was leaving my office for an appointment I passed an elderly gentleman walking in the opposite direction who was smoking a pipe. It has been 20 years since my dad’s death, and many more years since he quit smoking his pipe. However, once a whisper of the aroma filled my nose I instinctively breathed deeply of that familiar scent and the memories flooded back.

My dad was a country boy who listened to classical music. He knew almost everything. Seriously. When the Trivial Pursuit boardgame came out he could win with one trip around the board; he got every question right, all the time. My love of obscure trivia is a gift from him. If my daughter Alex had known him, my own weirdness would wane in comparison. Although we thought it was normal to find him reading a tome from our set of Encyclopedia Britannica, or the dictionary. A little light reading, just for fun. Keep in mind this was way before the time of home computers and the internet.

He was irreverent, not the stuffy Cardiologist one might expect. I remember one time taking dinner to him at the hospital. He had on his usual, white coat and stethoscope draped around his neck. However, he also had a t-shirt with a big Superman emblem that showed underneath his white button down shirt and tie. And his socks never matched! My dad was color blind, but if you pointed out that one sock was blue and one was black, he would exclaim “I have another pair just like it at home!”
We lived in a nice quiet neighborhood, but my dad used to shoot his shotgun at midnight to welcome in the New Year, startling the neighbors. He put his stereo speakers in the open windows and piped John Philip Sousa marches while we raked leaves. And in the summer he could beat even my brothers with a bigger splash doing a cannonball into the pool.

My sister Susan loves to tell of a time he went to pick her up from high school. As she stood waiting for him among a throng of her classmates, dad drove up. He had our mother’s shoes tied together and slung over the rear view mirror. Another sister was on a date only to find a salmon patty he had hidden in her purse. Poor Bonny was the brunt of numerous practical jokes. He would have us little sisters short-sheet her bed, or what we called make a “pie” bed. Once he wrapped her toilet seat in plastic wrap. I don’t know where he came up with them, but he went through a stage of putting different critters on her bed.

I remember many of the silly things he used to do. More importantly I remember how he loved his family! His love for us was surpassed only by his love for God. He lived an exemplary Christian life which was modeled by Titus 2:7-8

In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

I am thankful for my dad’s legacy of Christian love and kindness. To this day I still hear from his former patients how his gentle spirit ministered to them. The very manner in which he lived his life was a witness of God’s goodness. I’m also thankful that even a hint of pipe smoke brought forth a comforting sense of my dad for me this afternoon.

I know the sense of smell conveys powerful connections. As I stop and smell the roses - or pipe tobacco, in life, I should choose to reflect on the memories evoked that teach me to also become an example to others by doing what is good.

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.