This is Part VIII of a series. Click here for Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, or VII.
Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, or VII.
Author’s note: The following column is based on a true story and uses language that many readers will find offensive.
Sam was born just after the First World War, which meant that he would be old enough to serve in the Second World War. He did so bravely and had many stories to share when he returned.
The old veteran loved to tell about the time he was in a bombed-out café and approached a wounded enemy while firing (and missing) with all seven rounds in his 45 auto. After he finished him off with his knife he tossed that 45 into a pile of rubble cursing it for never shooting the way he told it to.
But there were other stories he would never tell. Like the time he was leading his men across a narrow bridge not knowing they would soon be ambushed. When the enemy opened fire they shot back as they headed backwards on the bridge. Sam held the gun in one hand as he tried to reach down and grab his wounded men. He could see the terror in their eyes as they plunged towards their deaths in the water down below.
No one would hear that story until after Sam died. His wife talked about how he woke up years later screaming in the night, sweating, and pounding his fists right through the thin bedroom wall. The long minutes seemed like hours before he realized he was awake and safe at home from the war.
But Sam loved his job at Joanie’s Café – a place owned by his sister and named after his only niece. He was so good with the customers that he built up the business far beyond what his sister had ever expected. In fact, business was so good that he eventually bought it from her. Sam never worked anywhere else.
But the civil rights movement came to the small Southern town a few years after he bought the place. Sam knew that he would have to be prepared so he bought a .357 magnum. When the first set of young black men came in to be seated at the counter Sam showed them his new gun. “Ain’t no God damned nigger eating here today. You boys understand?” Looking down the barrel of the gun, they had little choice but to understand.
And so Sam’s place stayed segregated and no one really thought much about it. The ugly and violent segregationist rhetoric was, unfortunately, a very commonplace thing in that day and time.
Years later, Sam was sitting in his chair enjoying a smoke when it hit him. He had a massive heart attack that would send him to the hospital for immediate surgery. According to his wife, he died three times that night before the doctors finally brought him out of it.
When the drugs began to wear off, he opened his eyes and all was hazy. He saw three figures moving slowly about the room or so it seemed. He looked up and saw a bright light. After he noticed that the three figures were dressed in white and that one of them had black skin he said out loud “Oh, Lord, God damn it. No one told me there would be black angels in heaven.”
The dark skinned woman walked over to his bed and said “You’re alive. You made it. Everything is going to be just fine.”
She would visit his bedside every day until he was ready to go home. Since it was a small town she must have known about the .357 behind the counter. But she went to visit his home anyway. And when he opened the door she stood smiling with a warm meal she had cooked just for Sam and his wife.
He was smiling as he opened the door and asked her to come in.
Extending forgiveness to someone who has done us wrong (see “Live and How to Live it, Part VII”) seems at first to be life’s hardest task. But it is really no more difficult than throwing a person out of our house after realizing he has been living there for years without paying rent.
But if we want to do more than remove a heavy burden from our souls we must do more than forgive. We must extend active charity to the person who does not deserve it. Then we may transform the other person, not just ourselves. In every case, the formula manages to dissolve even the most hardened of sensibilities.
Those who do not follow both of these pieces of advice will probably never experience true happiness.
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Mike S. Adams was born in Columbus, Mississippi on October 30, 1964. While a student at Clear Lake High School in Houston, TX, his team won the state 5A soccer championship. Mike Adams graduated from C.L.H.S. in 1983 with a 1.8 GPA. Mike Adams was ranked 734 among a class of 740, largely as a result of flunking English all four years of high school. After obtaining an Associate's degree in psychology from San Jacinto College, Mike Adams moved on to Mississippi State University where he joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. While living in the fraternity house, his GPA rose to 3.4, allowing him to finish his B.A., and then to pursue a Master's in Psychology. In 1990, Mike Adams turned down a chance to pursue a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia, opting instead to remain at Mississippi State to study Sociology/Criminology. This decision was made entirely on the basis of his reluctance to quit his night job as member of a musical duo. Playing music in bars and at fraternity parties and weddings financed his education. Mike Adams also played for free beer.
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Upon getting his doctorate in 1993, Adams, then an atheist and a Democrat, was hired by UNC-Wilmington to teach in the criminal justice program. A few years later, Adams abandoned his atheism and also became a Republican. He also nearly abandoned teaching when he took a one-year leave of absence to study law at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1998. After returning to teach at UNC-Wilmington, Adams won the Faculty Member of the Year award (issued by the Office of the Dean of Students) for the second time in 2000.
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After his involvement in a well publicized free speech controversy in the wake of the 911 terror attacks, Adams became a vocal critic of the diversity movement in academia. After making appearances on shows like Hannity and Colmes, the O'Reilly Factor, and Scarborough Country, Adams was asked to write a column for Townhall.com.
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Today Mike Adams enjoys the privilege of expressing himself both as a teacher and a writer. Mike Adams is also an avid hunter and reader of classic literature. Mike Adams published his first book, Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel, in 2004. His second book, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus, was published in 2008.
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