I don’t know about you but my heart was numbed with hurt, and filled with anger, after the gruesome assassination of Charlie Kirk last week at Utah Valley University.
Maybe that awful pain is why my Saturday morning plan – drive a loop around Tupelo, Miss. to some yard sales – turned out to be more than just a morning of bargain hunting.
I had a ticket to see Charlie Kirk in person at Ole Miss on October 29. To do that I sneakily signed up as a student, at the age of 50, so I could avoid the waiting list and get a seat. And now he’s gone.
Just like that. Gone.
After his terrible murder Wednesday, what followed was 2 ½ days of sad, terrible news stories. At the end of the workday Friday, after writing a story describing Democrats celebrating his death, it was finally time to end the worst week of news in a long time and start the weekend.
On the way home Friday, I noticed several yard sale signs. This is important. It’s important because yard sale afficionados know yard sale signs on Friday are always a good sign for lots of yard sales Saturday morning. Trust us. It’s scientific.
North-East-South-Home
Before I got home, I had made a plan for early-morning bargain hunting. That plan goes like this: I leave my family sleeping in bed while I drive five minutes north to Tupelo. Sipping from a mug of hot coffee, I drive a horseshoe-shaped loop through this little city: drive north, then turn east, then turn south toward home. Then I get back home in time to put some Mary B's biscuits in the oven while everyone is still stirring in bed.
That is what I did on a breezy, early-Fall Saturday morning. And here’s what happened.
The first yard sale stop was at a swanky home in Spring Lake, an exclusive Tupelo neighborhood. It’s the kind of home where you feel pretty poor parking in front of it.
I was looking through a rack of men’s shirts when I overheard a conversation between two 50ish-aged men. Just catching a few words about drinking water through a water hose, and staying outside until dark, was enough to know a couple of my fellow Gen-Xers were reminiscing about our shared childhoods.
“And don’t forget about riding our bikes everywhere,” I broke in. “And building ramps to jump them.”
“And somehow we didn’t break out necks,” one of the men, the homeowner, replied.
My only purchase at the swanky home was a long-sleeve pullover, the Faded Glory brand from Wal-Mart. Fancy that! You could fit most of a Walmart store in that house. I paid two dollars for the shirt, without negotiating any lower, because that’s a bargain even for a Walmart shirt.
After the stop at the expensive home, the home values and square footage at other yard sales around Tupelo dropped to more familiar surroundings. Two miles away, at my second yard sale stop of the morning, three friendly black women greeted me in the driveway. Smiling and energetic, they were more like sales people on a showroom floor, except in this case they were selling yard sale items and home-cooked food, too.
I turned down their sales pitch for a hot dog, twice, but I picked up some Gold’s Gym push-up stands and a heavy iron skillet. All totaled, I owed them five dollars. Then the business negotiations began. I asked if they would take a dollar for the iron skillet. The counter-offer was $1.50. So, I walked away $4.50 poorer and admiring them for working so hard, and smiling so big, on an early Saturday morning.
Tough week’s news sticks around
At the third yard sale of the morning, Charlie Kirk’s murder came back to me. That’s because a white middle-aged woman was selling a Trump 2024 hat, which hinted at her political leanings. She was also selling a funny Trump window sticker, which looks like he’s riding in your backseat. Both of those yard sale items suggested I was in political company to share what I was feeling. So, I did. I told her I was still feeling stunned and feeling sick about what happened. I told her about my Ole Miss ticket.
“I feel so sick about it, too,” she shared. “He loved the Lord. He was a good young man. I just don’t understand people.”
A black woman who was shopping a few feet away was listening, too. From what she said she didn’t follow Charlie like we did, so she wasn’t angry and hurting like we were, but she knew he had been unjustly killed because of his politics.
“People,” the black woman said, “need to learn to agree to disagree.”
Considering all the evil people who think Charlie Kirk deserved that bullet, that’s good advice to hear.
At that woman’s home I bought Billy Graham’s biography Nearing Home, which he wrote at age 92, and the silly Trump window sticker. The sweet woman was going to give me both for free, but I insisted otherwise. So, I walked away with Billy Graham’s parting words, and President Trump for a passenger, for two bucks.
When I left that yard sale, the morning was getting away from me. Back at home the Davis family would be looking for sausage biscuits soon, so I had time for one final stop before heading home. That final stop was at a small yard sale run by one person, a Hispanic woman. She was running it on her own because her son, who looked to be 11 or 12 years old, appeared too busy on his iPhone to be of any help.
Well, I told myself, that’s a universal problem.
At her yard sale I bought a “love you forever” picture frame, for one dollar, then raced home. My wife Shannon loved it. She immediately found a family photo for the frame and it was on a living room shelf before breakfast was ready.
Now that I was home, and the bargain hunting was over, I refilled the coffee and relived the morning while the biscuits baked and the sausage cooked. I wondered how many hot dogs those hustling ladies sold. I wondered how a Walmart shirt ended up in that mansion of a home. I wondered if the Hispanic lady, in her native tongue, finally told her son to put that stupid phone away and pay attention.
Biscuit therapy
When it was time for breakfast, something happened while I was buttering my biscuit. I started appreciating all those folks. It was dawning on me I had taken my own hurting, angry soul bargain hunting, too. Standing in the driveways and the garages all over town, talking and listening to strangers and neighbors, my damaged soul had been refreshed on a cool Saturday morning in Mississippi.
My soul. That is the key. In the political climate right now, when there are cheers over a man’s death and calls to avenge him, it is our souls that remind us we are more than animals. We are an extended family, each of us created by God, and known by Him, for such a time as this.
Regardless of the square footage of our homes, or the amount of melanin, we all come from Adam. We all bleed the same, just like Charlie did.
So I started writing about the morning, because I believed there are other angry, hurting people who need to be reminded, too.
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