August 19, 2019 - In 1957, I became the Student Pastor of the Liberty Hill Baptist Church of San Augustine, Texas. One of the members, Mrs. Maud Bucklew, often invited me to eat lunch with her when I drove down to San Augustine on Saturdays. Maud lived a couple of miles from Bland Lake down a hot unpaved road. As I was flying along to her house one Saturday, I spotted what seemed to be a dead bare-footed man slumped over a pile of clay. Jumping out of the car, I clawed my way up the bank and by stretching out my arm, touched one of his big toes.
The wild-eyed man shot straight up and as he stuttered unintelligible words, I stuttered, “I thought you were dead!” Shaking nervously, he stammered out, “Well, I aint!”
I got to my car and while I was trying to tell Maud about the man, she began laughing. “You mean that old man down the road?” “He takes a nap down there most every day…” “Everybody knows he’s crazy.”
If I ever see a man lying by the road again, I’ll do all I can to see if he’s alive. But there’s one thing I will never do again.
I will never again grab a man by his big toe.
