“The Shirt Off My Own Back” (Doug Fincher)

June 6, 2016 - In the 70’s while I was Pastor of the Fletcher Emmanuel Baptist Church in Lumberton, Texas, I became friends with church-member Gordon Reynolds.  Our interest in hunting and fishing gave rise to many fishing and hunting trips across Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana.  A  squirrel hunting trip with Gordon was always one to remember.

On our way to the Woodville Indian Reservation one day, we got into a discussion about stingy people.   Gordon remarked, “You know me, Doug”, “I’d give y0u the shirt off my back.” “Sure y0u would”, I laughed….“because the one you’re now wearing  belongs to me.”  “Oh,” he chuckled. “You left it in my boat last week.”

It’s Election year again and the government is offering the shirts off their backs to us if we will just vote like they want us to. They don’t seem to understand that the shirts on their backs don’t belong to them.

They belong to America’s working people who left them in the government’s boat.