The Southern Baptists had an old bob-tail truck on the east coast of Honduras.  A Baptist missionary at Progresso, a suburb of San Pedro Sula kept it.  I was allowed to use it on most every medical trip that I took to that area of the country. 

The truck was quite old with faded blue paint and with wooden rails around the back where my people could stand as we went along.  It was pre-1973 with an old-fashion ignition system, sine most all vehicles post=1973 have a computerized ignition system.

I want to tell you about one afternoon.  The medical team was scheduled to be in a certain remote village for the next two days.  Two of the doctors and some nurses and a few other folks wanted to go visit the place on the afternoon before.  They wanted to decide where we should locate the different parts of the clinic in the school where we were to be and move the desks and benches aside to be all prepared for the next morning.

I was supposed to be at a screening of the Jesus Film at a new Garifina church where the young missionary to the black Garifinas was to show the Jesus Film that night in Spanish, which I had brought with us.  However, I needed to take the group on to that village and try to get back for the last of the film.  I commandeered a local fellow who knew the location of the village, and we all piled into the old bob-tail truck and started up the highway.  As I have mentioned, there was one narrow new blacktop highway that ran along to coast all the way from Tela to La Ceiba down near Nicaragua.  After about 25 miles on the pavement, we turned off onto a dirt road.  We went at least 15 miles and forded two rather large rivers before finally arriving at the village.  There were many houses and shacks scattered around but very little infrastructure there, just the one dirt road through a few buildings that went on down to the school.

We finished our tasks at the school, and just as we were going back through the little group of buildings, the truck suddenly just died.  I tried the ignition, and nothing.  Quite a crowd of people gathered around us and one of them raised the hood.  These people are used to old vehicles so they proceeded to do the first thing that one should do.  They proceeded to take the cables off the battery and scrape the inside of the cable clamps and the battery posts.  They put them back on, clamped the cables down and I was very hopeful.   I got back in the truck, tried the ignition…….and nothing.  Nothing at all.  Not even a grinding sound.

Here we were with dark coming on soon, so many miles from help, and no way to contact anyone from that remote site.  Even if they had a phone somewhere in the village there was no way to get a call back to our folks.  The phones down there at that time were so awkward, almost to the point of impossible.  We were about 30 miles from San Pedro Sula, which has the highest rate of murders of any town on the planet, even those in the Middle East.  You can check that on the internet…..not a good place for all those folks to spend the night. Really, that truck needed to start, but it was just dead. 

I explained all that to the Lord, but I am sure that he already knew.  But what happened next I will never forget.  I went back and looked under the hood.  I know quite a bit about cars and trucks, but I am just lost as a master mechanic.  At that precise moment it was like a force just took hold of me.  I cannot explain it.  There were all kinds of old wires in that engine compartment and at least 30 or 40 black electrical tape covered connections.  But my eyes suddenly became just riveted on one piece of old, black, dry electrical tape.  I reached down and took hold of it and it just came off loose in my fingers.  And there where it had been were two wires that had been twisted together, but were now just loose and apart.

A big noisy “aahhh” went up from the crowd.   I had no idea what those wires went to, but I twisted them back together.  I went back into the cab, tried the ignition, and that old truck fired up as smooth as could be.  Much later I figured that the wires must have gone to the coil that that makes the spark plugs spark, and would be necessary for the truck to run.  However at the time I had no idea, nor could I have known that they were pulled apart……..under that piece of old black tape.

We got on back to Tela just before 9:00 PM.

You can say that I was just lucky, but, folks, I personally consider that specific, divine intervention!  It proved to me, once again, that God’s Spirit Power and His Powerful Angels are really there and available when they are really, really needed.  How could I possibly have known which one of those pieces of black tape needed to be pulled off.

On this one trip to Honduras, it was so very hot and humid.  I worked mostly in the dental clinic, for there were always way more people needing relief from severe dental problems than we could possibly treat.

Before we go, I always ask the doctors going for the first time to go back and study some of the things that they had in medical school but have never seen in their practice in the US.   On this one occasion I remember that an older man came in with advanced jungle rot.  His whole foot was grossly swollen and just covered in a mass of it.  The doctor came over to me and said:  “Ronald, I don’t know what to do about this.  I can’t do an amputation down here.  What shall I do?”  

I told his nurse to spray it all down with Hydrogen Peroxide and bandage it up.  The old gentleman went away happy and smiling.

Also, on this trip, I was walking through the room where the ladies were finding the glasses from all those that had been donated to match the prescriptions that Dr. Youngerman had written.  They were then adjusting them to fit the heads of the patients with that prescription after those glasses had been found.  Just as I was about to leave, I noticed this one lady who was just standing there, quietly crying.

Of course, I asked her what was wrong, like was she ill?  She assured me that she was fine, but that it had to do with this one older Hispanic lady who had just left.  She said that after she had fitted the lady with her new glasses, she just stood there looking at her hands.  She asked the lady if something was wrong with her hands.

Did she need to go see one of the doctors?  The Hispanic lady said that her hands were fine.

She just said:  “This is the first time that I have been able to see my hands in as long as I can remember.”

This just struck an emotional chord with this lovely lady volunteer from Hurst, Texas and brought her to tears.

As you might suspect, finding the optimum job for each volunteer cam be a challenge.  And in that heat and pressure, some folk’s temper gets the better of them late in the day.

On several trips this one guy went with us who was not mean, but just very aggressive.  The other team members called him “Rambo”.   I finally found just the right job for Rambo.  Almost without exception almost everyone down there needs worming.  It won’t last that long with the grownups, but we hope that the children will be able to stay worm free long enough for their mental facilities to develop so that they will not be impaired later in life.  I learned to put Rambo out in the very front of each clinic.   His job was to worm every single person coming into the clinic.  It worked great, and he really “adapted himself” to the task.

But this trip, we encountered a major catastrophe.  We ran out of worm medicine with several more days to go.  I rely on the doctors to furnish the particular drugs that they think that they will need.  Much of the time they are able to use the samples that the drug salesmen leave at their offices.  However, someone slipped up this time and did not order nearly enough worm medicine.

On this trip our pharmacist was the pharmacy director for a Sack-and-Save store in Denton, Texas.  He was a real character.  Some might have described him as a “real piece of work.”  He told me not to worry about it, that he would take care of it.  And he for sure did.  He went to the one agricultural store in that town of Tela and bought a supply of cattle spray.  He was good; he knew what he was doing.  He diluted it down sufficiently with some organic chemicals and that became our worm medicine.  It turned out to be a bright pink, and, wow, was it effective.  I kid you not, for years after that I got calls from down there wanting some more of that pink worm medicine.  They had never had anything so effective.

So, I kept hearing a rumor on this one trip that some of the people had found a little girl and were planning on bringing her back with us.  I did not investigate and did not talk with them, but only when we got to the airport at San Pedro Sula did I see the little girl.  Her mother had dressed her in her best dress, and she was just a darling girl with the most engaging smile.  Her problem was that this massive growth covered the whole area of what would have been her right eye…….that whole area of her face.  I guessed her to be about 9 years old.

One of the doctors with us had called his friend in Mississippi who he knew specialized in such things.  The doctor in Mississippi had promised to operate on her.  Other than that horrible growth, she was just the cutest thing with her very best dress on.  Her name is Valentina.

I did not see her again until we got to Houston.  I waited until most all of our group had gone through immigration.  Then I looked way over where those huge curtains were pulled back from the floor to ceiling windows in the Houston terminal.  There was this group of our people with the little girl.  No one was headed toward immigration so I went over to see what was wrong.

They had panicked.  They had realized that this girl had no passport and no visa to enter the United States.  No one wanted to be the person to try to take her up to immigration, so they just handed her to me.

I don’t know how to tell you what happened next.  Just believe me. 

At that moment this powerful rush of power or energy just invaded my body.  It seemed to permeate every single cell.  I suddenly felt as if I could walk through fire or even walk on water.  I just took that little girl by the hand and said:  “Come on ‘little darlin’ Valentina, let’s go to the Estados Unidos”.  I headed straight ahead to the first open immigration station.

I had my passport out, but, of course, she had nothing, not even any ID.  There behind the counter was this huge black man in his green uniform.  He was not fat, he was just really huge and quit official and imposing looking.  He looked down at that little girl, and she just smiled up at him.  Big tears welled up in his eyes.  All he could say was:  “Lord bless you sir, Lord bless you sir.  You all just go right on.”  

He did not check my passport or anything as respects Valentina.  So, we just went right on.  She sat next to me on the flight to Dallas.  When we got there, I took her on up to my ranch west of Denton, Texas.  She really enjoyed visiting with my two daughters and my two youngest sons by the swimming pool that looks out over the prairie.  They were so kind to her. 

Before dark, I took her back to Carrollton to Onelia.  Onelia escorted her to Mississippi the next morning.

A few days later I called Onelia to inquire about the operation.  She said that it was successful, but that the doctors told her that they estimated that the girl would have died in only 3 more weeks without that operation.

Onelia hopes to get her an artificial eye, later, some day.

On every trip that I took to Honduras, this wonderful, impressive lady went with us.  Her name is Barbara Borre.   She is over six feet tall and perfectly proportioned, not overweight and not skinny and very nice looking.  She was one of the top Immigration Officials in the Dallas Region.  Barbara just effused authority.  Since her shoulders were a little wider than most women and the military way in which she carried herself made her all the more impressive, especially when she put on her Immigration uniform.

It was very helpful to have her on those trips, since she could tell us what we could take out of the US and what we could bring in.  On every trip she worked in the Dental Clinic. 

When she heard about the little Honduran girl that I have just described and how she was able to get into the US without a passport or even a visa, here is what Barbara said to me:  “Ronald, I can tell you with authority, that was absolutely a miracle from God!”

PS:  When writing this, I became curious about whatever happened to Valentina, so I called down there to Honduras just now.  They told me that she was living up in the mountains with her father and doing fine.

Our medical teams would usually go to the east coast of Honduras.  There are so many really poor villages of people there along the coast and inland from there.  However, like I related, we went two times into the Province of Yoro and the town of Yoro with teams sponsored by First Baptist Church of Carrollton, Texas. 

There is a strange thing that happens every year and sometimes twice a year at Yoro.  Fish fall from the sky.  The locals call it, lluvia de pesces.

When I first heard of it, of course I did not believe it.  How could such happen.  But I met so many people from there, including my eventual evangelist lady, Onelia, that had gathered the fish in baskets and had sea food that they only get to eat that one or two times a year.  They consider it a gift from God, and so many of these people are so desperately poor that they really need the protein, especially at that time of the summer.

This has been happening for generations.   They say that in the mid 1800’s a Catholic missionary named Manuel de Jesús Subirana came to Yoro to minister to the people.  He was so distressed over their poverty and lack of food that he fasted and prayed for three days and three nights.  The people say that immediately after that the fish started falling and have done so ever since.  A team form National Geographic actually got to be there and record it in the 1970’s.  And on our second trip to Yoro I missed it by only two weeks.

There is a mountain range just to the west of Yoro.  Onelia said that when the clouds got extremely black coming over those mountains she would ask the priest if it was time.  He would say that they need to be even more black.  Finally, he would say:  “Get your baskets, it is time”.  And after those clouds have passed, they would go out to this field and fill their baskets with fish.

Having an engineering degree and having taken all those science courses, I really wanted an explanation; so I set out to find the answer.  Sometimes the fish are small and silver colored like sardines, but more often they are much larger.  I got Onelia and some of the other people there to draw me pictures of exactly what the larger fish looked like. 

I have had some great times with my father catching big sail fish in the Pacific fairly near shore in southern Mexico.  Every time we went out, we would pass large schools of bonito schooling right on top of the water.

Those pictures that they drew looked exactly like the bonito, which are related to tuna fish.

Almost every afternoon, cold air would drift out from the mountains there and water spouts would drop down and just “play around” over the water.  Sometimes we would have to wait until they went back up into the clouds before we could get back with our boat to where we were staying.  I just know that sometimes those bonito were sucked up and carried over the mountains to Yoro.   But you say, how could a storm be that strong?

On the afternoon that our medical team was coming back from the mountain where we met with the Indians that had never seen a white men.  In our eclectic caravan of cars and trucks, we saw a storm coming toward us from the west.  I have seen lots of weather, but I have never seen clouds that incredibly black and lightning that intense.   Sometimes in Texas storm clouds will look dark blue, but these were absolutely black.  I did not hear of any fish coming down that day, but I could see how a storm that intense could keep fish up there and carry them east.

Of course, the people there consider it a direct gift from God, and I would not dispute them.  They really need the protein.  Sometimes the fish fall in town, but almost without exception, for several generations the fish fall in a particular field next to a suburb of Yoro called, La Unión.  They even have a festival and parade in little La Unión every year where they elect a “Miss Falling Fish” as queen…..Senorita Lluvia de Peces…….or, Miss Fish Rain.   She rides in a float dressed as a mermaid.

Since I know some of you still won’t believe this, here is an article from the New York Times from last summer: 

Every Year the Sky ‘Rains Fish’

By KIRK SEMPLE

JULY 16, 2017, THE NEW YORK TIMES

YORO, Honduras — Things don’t come easy in La Unión, a small community on the periphery of Yoro, a farming town in north-central Honduras.

(Click on this site and read about it, or paste it in your browser)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/world/americas/honduras-rain-fish-yoro.html

Like I wrote before, here in the U.S. which has so many churches and Christian media, evidently God does not need to show his Spirit Power so much..   However, you get far enough away to places with little Christian influence, and one gets to see actual manifestations of God’s Spirit Power.

After we left Khao-I-Dang we did not find out until the next day that the North Vietnamese had probed and killed 30 people right there at the intersection in front of the Khao-I-Dang Camp just after we left.  You may recall that I wrote about the man at that camp who had been the only pastor in Cambodia, and how the Khmer Rouge had found him and put him into one of their killing fields camps.  I told how God had actually sent one of his “shinning angels” to miraculously protect him from certain execution, just like others Billy Graham wrote about in his book, Angels.

However, we wanted to visit one more refugee camp before dark, Sa Kaeo II.  By now things were working just as the KGB had planned.  The North Vietnamese Communists were coming into Cambodia and driving the Khmer Rouge out.  This was a new camp and was already mostly populated by Khmer Rouge refugees who were themselves escaping Cambodia.

When we arrived, they were pulling this enormous chain across the entrance to block any North Vietnamese tanks from coming in.  There were no UN people there.  The place was run by a Thai officer.  They called him down to the entrance to check our credentials, and right away we found how casual this place was.  He came down only clad in his T-shirt and his drawers.  He was really nice.   He put a soldier on the outside step of our little bus with his automatic weapon and told us to go anywhere we wished.

Everything there was made of big stalks of bamboo, and most all of it was still green.  The people here were much younger than the previous camp, and there were many young children.

I walked up to the top of a hill where a Swiss NGO had constructed a hospital.  All workers at the hospital had already gone home, but there was a group of the most interesting young boys gathered there.  They were all between the ages of 12 and 16.  But what was so strange was that almost every one of them had some kind of injury.  Some had lost a leg or an arm or and eye, but most just had flesh wounds that were almost healed.  They all crowded around me, for they were all in the process of learning English in the hopes of getting to the US some day and had never met an American.

One of the older ones was named Hem-Hatch.  He could speak fairly good English, so I asked him about all these boys.  Where were their parents?  He said:  “No parents.”  So I asked:  “What is your story?”   So, he told me that they all had the same story.  They had all been in Cambodia in different villages.  The Khmer Rouge had come to their villages and lined everyone up and started going down the line, shooting every person, one at a time.  These guys saw their parents and siblings shot.  They realized that if they did not get out of there, they were going to be dead.  So, they just bolted for the jungle.  They ran as fast as they could, zigzagging as they ran to dodge the bullets.  Most had been hit at least once or lost an eye to the thorns as they crashed through the jungle.   What a strange group of orphans, but they were full of energy and enthusiasm. 

I corresponded with Hem-hatch for quite a while and sent him some Thai Baht that I could buy at a Dallas bank.  I don’t know what finally happened to him.  In the last letter I received from him he stated that he had the chance to go to France, but they were trying to get him to go back into Cambodia.  I wrote him to get his rear-end into France, for I knew that the North Vietnamese were intercepting those repatriation busses as soon as they crossed the border and killing everyone on them.

When I got back to our little bus, the folks there had found this young lady.  She was somewhere between age 19 to 24.  She was one of those new Christians that were coming out of Cambodia that I mentioned earlier.  And they were not just casual Christians.   That terror had bonded them so close to God that it was spooky.  This girl had taken upon herself the task to teach bible stories and Christian principals to every young child in the camp that she possibly could.  She was teaching groups of children all day and into the night.  There were 90,000 people already in that camp.  She stayed on the verge of exhaustion all the time.  Her dream was to get to the US and attend a bible-oriented college some day.

She gave me the name and address of a young lady friend who worked for the UN and would be able to bring things into the camp to her.  When I got back to Dallas I went to several Christian book stores and bought all the different boxes of felt bible stories and sent them to her.  Those are where you put up the different characters of a bible story on a felt board for the children as you tell the story.  She wrote back how thrilled she was and how she used them to great effect for all those children.  I also sent her quite a lot of Thai Baht so that she could buy things such as soccer balls for the older children.

So, before we left, we wanted to have a prayer for this lovely young Christian lady.  I was sitting on the front row of the little bus and she sat just above me on the chrome supports.  After we prayed, she prayed.  And I will never forget for the rest of my life what happened.  The bus was air conditioned, so it must have been cooler than normal for her.   But as she prayed, I felt water dripping down onto me.  When that girl prayed, the intensity of her prayer, the intensity of her communication with God, caused her to become wet all over.  Evidently, because of the necessity of what she was doing, God had infused her with a prodigious amount of his mighty Spirit Power.

To this day, I feel guilty that I have never been able to pray like that……with the intensity of that girl.

In my book soon to be published, there is one incident that I want to tell you about.  It happened on one of the trips to Honduras when I was taking medical teams there to treat the people in remote parts of the country.

After getting up at daylight, having breakfast, loading up the vehicles, and then treating the multitude of people in that heat and humidity, my doctors and nurses and dentists and the others were just exhausted by 4:00PM.  I would send them back where we were staying to rest up and get ready for the next day.

However, Onelia, my super lady evangelist and I would stay at the site of that day’s clinic to show the Jesus Film that night.  We would rest and recuperate while waiting for it to get dark.  Usually a family or a single mother would want to fix us a dinner.  It was most often the same thing, stewed chicken with tomatoes, rice and beans.  They seldom fried the chicken because they were just too tough.  They needed to be boiled.

On this one particular evening on what was the 4th or 5th trip down to Honduras, a nice couple wanted to fix us a dinner.  They had designated a particular young rooster for the dinner, but the problem was that they could not catch the rooster.  They chased it round and round and over and under all the structures there.  As it got later and later, Onelia finally pulled out a 10 Lempira note and said it would go to the young person who could catch the rooster, for there was quite a crowd of youngsters gathered there.  That did it.  In nothing flat that rooster was caught and in the pot.  The chicken stew was quite good with tomatoes and peppers and the seasonings that they use.

We showed the Jesus Film with great results.  Many men and women came and stood under the string of lights that we would turn on after the film.  They wanted to have God in their life, and were counseled by Onelia.  Finally, we eventually got back to where we were staying.  There was one waitress at the eating place there who was so very special.  She knew what we were doing with the Jesus Film each night, and she would stay to give us a treat like a bowl of homemade ice cream upon our return.

About that time I noticed that my watch had quit.  I knew that there was no way I could get another battery for it in that coastal town, and as “Jefe” in charge of everything, I just had to have a watch.

I went to my room where Bill Smith, the pastor of the sponsoring church was rooming with me.  He had caught some kind of really bad virus or flu.  He had been in bed all day and was so ill that he could not walk or hardly even talk.  I explained to him that I just had to have a watch and did not know what I was going to do.  So all Bill Smith said was:  “OK”.

I have mentioned before that this guy was not like other pastors.  Other pastors will talk about sawing off the limb and having God catch them, but Bill Smith would really do it.  And God would really catch him every time.  Some of those catches were unbelievably spectacular.

I went into the back to my room to use the facilities and wash-up.   But Bill got out of that bed, crawled to the door, and down the three steps and when I came back into the room, he was crawling back into the room through the door.

He reached up, handed me a watch and crawled back into bed.  I said:  “Where in the world did you get this watch?”   And all he said was:   “In the grass”, and promptly seemed to pass out again.  That’s all he said.

The watch was wet from the dew on the grass.   It had a nice black expandable band and the face was in both English and Spanish.  So, you could say that was quite a coincidence, but I could say how did he know where it was in the grass, and how did it get there?  Folks, that was as much a tangible a miracle as one would ever see or imagine.  One that you could touch and feel.

I only told one trusted Christian friend about it back in Dallas; for I figured no one else would ever believe me.  And you know, the battery in that watch lasted for over 5 years.  I figured it was never going to stop.  I wore it most of the time, and that friend still calls it my “miracle watch” to this day.

If you would like to see more stories like this, go to my site and scroll to the bottom and put your email in the box on the Texas flag……… http://www.truetexantales.com

I just had the overwhelming compulsion that I was supposed to go to Russia.  My father and I had sold the Russians several groups of Santa Gertrudis cattle, but I did not need to go there.  They always came here for those purchases. 

Also, in the early 1970’s most people from here were not especially welcome there.   If you drew a chart of Russia’s meanness and their efforts to take over the whole world in the name of Communism, that would have been the time when the graph of meanness on the chart would have been at its peak.  But I thought I should go.

Even though we had sold them cattle, you didn’t just apply for a visa and go on your own.  That would have caused all kinds of suspicion and consternation.  But I found a way (or was shown a way).  There was a man from Houston who was getting together a small group of people to go to Russia for a “Cultural Tour”, mostly to listen to the Russian symphony orchestras and to particularly watch the Russian ballets.  Russia had a long history in these areas and Communists were still proud of those traditions.  In fact, in those days there, that was some of the only entertainment that they had.

So, my wife and I joined this cultural tour.  A few of the people were from Houston and a few were from Dallas.  We were to go to Moscow and St. Petersburg (called Leningrad under the Communists).  

When you fly across Russia you realize just how huge that country is.  As we were flying for hours and hours, I was thinking:  How in the world could the Germans ever think they could conquer a place this huge.

In the early days of the 1970’s one of the first things you learned was that almost nothing had been built since the Communists took over in 1917.  Most of the municipal buildings used by the Communist government are old palaces and the homes of formerly very wealthy people from pre-revolution days that have been converted to other uses.  Even the main department store in Moscow was a converted palace.

The hotel where we stayed in Moscow was directly across the street from the huge Red Square.  It and the room’s furniture was pre-1917.  Our room even had a grand piano in it from those days.

Another thing that you had heard about and were now experiencing was that the government and the KGB controlled everything.   They did not even check any of our luggage or belongings upon entering the country.

Their attitude was that if you brought in anything that you shouldn’t, they would know it because of their tight control.  The floors on our four-story hotel were not very large, only a few rooms, but at the head of the stairs on every floor was a tough looking lady at a desk who just watched everything.  Just for spite, I started leaving my room key with her whenever I left.  She just kept it for me.  She never said a word.

Another thing that you learned was that nothing worked.  There was a small leak in my bathroom under the sink.  I was told by the economics’ head of the US embassy in Moscow (with whom I had a most interesting visit) that I could come back years from now and that leak would still be there. 

Our group did attend cultural events.  One in particular was a “big deal”.  Their most famous ballerina, their Prima Ballerina was about to retire.  The ballet “Anna Karenina” was written just for her.  It is based on the Russian novel by Tolstoy.  She was going to dance it one more time and then it would never be danced again until after she died.

This was one of the biggest events in Moscow in many, many years.  The wives of all the top officials in Moscow were there, dressed in their finest.  However, I need to tell you about “their finest”.  See, only recently every woman in all of Moscow had received a new coat from the government.  The Russians love fur.  But these were all cloth coats of different colors, but with only a fur collar.  So, the wives of all these top officials could only have and wear these cloth coats with their fur collars; and they were no better than those same coats that the peasant ladies had gotten also.

We were given the best seats in the house.  They were the very center seats in the first balcony.  Sitting next to my wife was Mrs. Storey Stemmons from our group, whose husband had been the brother of John Stemmons.  The big Stemmons Freeway leading into downtown Dallas is named after them.  Mrs. Stemmons had on a full-length mink coat with a gorgeous sable collar.  My wife had on a crimson dress with a wide gold belt and a full-length mink coat.  I took a picture of all those hundreds of officials’ wives down below looking up and staring with envy.

In my book I tell much more about Russia as it was in those days.  I tell about visiting in the Kremlin with the head of all animal husbandry in Russia who had been in Texas buying our cattle, and how I got lost inside the Kremlin and wandered into places that I never should have been.  I also tell about meeting with some of their top leaders in the Kremlin and what they sincerely wanted from me, and also how I was officially detained by the KGB before leaving.

But who I really want to tell you about are two older ladies from Houston who went with us.  At that time you could buy Russian rubles at a bank in the US for 17 cents.  However, the Russians required you to pay $1.83 for each ruble there.  They for sure did not want you to bring any rubles into the county from the outside.  It was an automatic 8 years in prison if you were caught with contraband rubles.  You didn’t even have a hearing.  You just went.

However, these two ladies had brought a huge amount of rubles into Russia with them.  They had brought them in their boots, in their coats and stuffed into all kinds of places.  Like I mentioned earlier, the Russians did not check you upon coming in.  Their attitude was that they had such control over their country that they did not need to check you upon entering.   Later, these ladies informed me that all this money was for the Underground Church in Russia.  That is all they said, except that……I was the one who was to pass all that money to the Underground church!!!!

Also, like I said earlier, I did not know why I thought I was compelled to go to Russia.  Now I knew that this is probably why.

I did not know anything about the Underground Church.  I did not even have a clue about where you might find it.  I knew that the Russians had closed most all the churches and made atheist museums out of them.  I had seen some of those.  I also knew that they did have one Baptist Church in Moscow so that they could brag about having “religious freedom”, but I did not even have a clue about where it was or how to get there.

So, it was early-afternoon, and I just told God:  “If I am really supposed to do this, You had better take over!”

And, so help me, and I cannot begin to explain it, but from that moment I was not in control of my own thoughts or my own actions.  I walked out of the front of that hotel and down the street for about half a block.  There across the street, in English, was a sign over a store front that read:  “Tourist Information”.

I went in and asked this lady how one could get to the Christian Evangelical Church in Moscow?  She said not a word but wrote this address down on a yellow slip of paper.  I walked out into that wide street in front of our hotel, which was directly across from Red Square and the Kremlin, as I mentioned before.

I got several taxies to stop, but when I showed them the address, they all shook their heads, no.  Then I looked over right in front of the hotel and there was a large black sedan with a fellow sitting in the driver’s seat.  I showed him the address and he motioned for me to go back out and get a taxi.  I tried several more taxies with the same lack of success.

I still cannot explain any of this, but I was just being led what to do.   I went back to the big black sedan and said:  “I think you are supposed to take me here”.   He looked at the yellow slip of paper and motioned for me to get in.  Off we went, way across Moscow.  Every time we stopped at a stoplight, I noticed people starring at this big black car.  Finally, we arrived at the church.  I went in and was greeted by folks that spoke English.  After some conversation they informed me that in a little more than an hour, they were going to have a full church service, and that I should get my wife and come attend.

I went back out and the black car was still there.  I told him what I wanted in English, and he took me back to the hotel.  But he never uttered a word.  I got my wife and he took us all the way back to the church.  They had us sit on the side of the balcony on its front row so we could look down at the congregation.  It was packed full.  And what was so interesting was that as they read the scripture from the pulpit, the people would hold their bibles up as high as their heads and the people behind would furiously copy the scripture.

When they sang, they did the same thing with the song books, and the people would furiously copy those words.

When this nice fellow came to escort us out, I could not believe it when these words came out of my mouth:  “I need to find the Under Ground church people.”  He looked at me and continued down this long hall.  There were no windows or doors along that hall, but abruptly he stopped and pushed on a wooden panel of the wall to our right and it just opened up.  There were all these young people in there.  I knew instantly that I had contacted the Under Ground  Church.  I was brave enough to explain to them that I had money for them and that I needed someone to go with me to receive it.

A nice young man went outside with me and my wife.  There was that big black car, patiently waiting on us.  I don’t know if the guy was KGB or what, but it didn’t seem to matter.  I asked him if I should pay him anything and he never said a word.   I did reach over and stuff 20 rubles into his upper coat pocket.

We got back to the hotel and I went up to the ladies’ room while the young man waited outside.  They had been taking a nap and were still a little groggy.  I couldn’t seem to get through to them so I finally said:  “I have come for the rubles!”  They both put their fingers up to their lips to shush me.  But I thought, oh really, there is no one listening to us.

They stuffed all those rubles into a shopping bag and handed it to me.  I walked right past that lady at her desk at the head of the stairs with no problem.  I handed it to the young man outside and he faded into the huge after work crowd.

Instantly, I was back into control and making my own decisions and actions again.

We were to have an early dinner so that we could attend another cultural function inside the Kremlin that night.  The two ladies were a little late coming down to dinner; and, wow, did they look shaken.  They said that no more and 15 minutes after I left their room, a KGB officer and some of his guys knocked on their door.  They said that in his long leather coat, he looked just like one of the German Nazi Gestapo officers from a WWII movie, and that he was even holding his cigarette backwards in his hand just like the Nazi’s in the movies did.

They had heard my words.  They searched every inch of that room, but found no contraband rubles, of course.

But then, mirabile dictu, at almost midnight when we got back to our room, the phone rang.  Like, I don’t know anybody in Moscow.   Who could possibly be calling? 

This deep voice answered in quite good English and thanked me for our “interest in the Church of Moscow”.   I immediately realized that he was talking so very officially and that I was supposed to “read between the lines”.  He had once been out of the country to attend a Christian conference, so it was OK for him to call and talk to me.

Still talking very “officially” he wanted me to know that everything was cool and it was mission accomplished!

The Texas Rangers are an elite law enforcement group.  They were originally started to protect the early settlers from the Comanches Indians on the frontier.  Then they were assigned to protect the people along the Mexican border from raids by bandits coming across from Mexico.

In my soon to be published book, I have a whole section on the Texas Rangers with some of their amazing true tales and exploits.

For many years I had a large office in downtown Dallas in the Adolphus Tower.  It had lovely parquet wood flooring with lush deep green carpeting.  There were big green leather chairs and beautiful western art on the walls by famous western artists.  I had a faithful secretary who could take short-hand dictation and could check the accuracy of complicated bond and stock prices.  I also had two young male assistants who traveled across the country finding specific real estate for purchase.

A few blocks up the street was a large, famous gun store.  It was across the street to the north from the Dallas police station.  Lawmen from all across Texas would come there to buy their guns which were priced at a large discount to them.  It was so interesting to visit there since when some old gun collector would die, his widow would not know what to do with all those guns.  However, this store would buy the whole collection and exhibit it.

I would sometimes go up there on my lunch hour and visit.  On one particular day, while I was there, Captain Clint Peoples come in.  He had just retired from being head of the Texas Rangers for many years.  The people at the store made a big fuss about him being there.  However, as head of the Texas Rangers he talked to almost no one in the media, and was still not accustomed to talking to people.

At that time my father was President of Central Freight Lines which just dominated the LTL freight business across Texas.  One reason that businesses liked to use Central was that it was the only large freight lines business in the whole United States that was never in a union.  Most all in the US were dominated by the Teamsters Union, controlled by Jimmy Hoffa and his thugs.

Central Freight Lines was a particular challenge to the Teamsters, being the only one not in their union.  They continually put enormous pressure on Central to get them into their union.  And in those days, the Teamsters would not fool with a National Labor Relations Board election to get them in, which was the proper legal process to go through.  They would just kidnap the President’s son and hold him until they got a union.  If it was taking too long for the company to capitulate, they would start sending back ears and fingers to accelerate the process.  As the son of Central’s president, that is why I had to carry a gun for much of my early life.  It was another reason that I liked to visit that famous gun store.

Anyway, as I mentioned, the folks at the store were so thrilled that Captain Clint Peoples had come in.  They implored him to please wait for a little while.  They explained that Captain Will Fritz had just retired and was living in a hotel suite just down the street.  They wanted to go get him.

So, I decided to wait too, and see these two famous lawmen visit with each other.  You have heard that name…….Will Fritz, but you can’t remember where.  Well, he was the Captain of the Dallas Police Detectives when Kennedy was shot.  He was the one who arraigned Oswald when he was taken into custody…….the only one who talked with him.

You have also seen the film showing Will Fritz many times.  He was the fellow in the white hat just to the left of Oswald when Jack Ruby shot him in the basement of that Dallas Police building.

Anyway, I was not disappointed when Fritz came into the store to meet-up with Captain Peoples.  Peoples knew that Fritz would never talk to the media about anything associated with the assassination, much to their consternation.  They always wanted to know what Oswald may have told Captain Fritz.

So, Captain Peoples said:  “Will, are those people still bothering you?”  

“Oh yea, Clint.  A few weeks ago the Washington Post said that if I would not answer their questions, they were going to have me investigated by the FBI!”

To which Peoples said with dripping sarcasm:  “I’ll bet you were just scared to death weren’t you, Will.” 

Those two old dudes were so very entertaining.

However, here is what I wanted to tell you:  When the store folks went to get Will Fritz, everyone walked off and left Captain Peoples and me just sitting alone on couches across from each other.  It was rather awkward, so I thought that I should introduce myself to Peoples.  But he stopped me!

He said:  “Don’t bother, I know you Ronald.”

“You know me Captain Peoples???”

And he said:  “Son, I have protected you your whole life, but you never knew it.”

I was so overwhelmed that I almost cried.

Later I realized that Waco was Captain Peoples home-town and Central’s headquarters, and that it was a matter of principle with him that those Teamster thugs would never kidnap and harm me. 

This is a short excerpt from my new book that is soon to be published.  If you would like to see more stories like this, go to my website………www.truetexantales.com     Also, be sure to scroll down to the Texas flag and put in your email.

For many years I had a lovely office in Downtown Dallas.  It had much space, dark green plush carpet, a big conference table, nice leather chairs, and lovely western art on the walls.  I had a great secretary who took shorthand, and two different young male assistants.

However, since I lived in the Denton area, the commute could be quite burdensome, especially on hot August days.  Occasionally I stopped at a Shell Station in Denton for gas.  I usually used a large Buick sedan for the commute.

On one August afternoon I was in my GMC Suburban from the ranch on the way home.  Since it held 40 gallons, I did not need to stop for gas very often.  On this one afternoon it had plenty of gas, but as I passed that shell station the Suburban on its own volition just changed lanes and pulled into the back of the gas station and parked itself not at a gas pump, but in the back of the little Shell building………all on its own.  It was in control, not me. 

I sat there for a few minutes, wondering what in the world this was all about.  Such had never happened before.  I knew that they sold bread there in the little building, so I decided to just go in and get a loaf of bread.  I selected a loaf from the rack and got in line to pay for it. 

In those days it was just before we were able to pay at the pump.  It was still necessary to go in and pay the cashier.

The cashier, who I had seen a few times before, was a quite attractive red-haired young lady.  As it came my time to pay, she looked up and when she saw me she just brightened up with a big show of emotion.  She said: “Oh, you came!”   To which I replied:  “Was I supposed to come?”  She then said that she had been concentrating all afternoon intently that I would come.  So, I replied: “Why me?”   She then said that she had noticed the fancy American Express Card that I paid for my gas with.  She said that no one else had one like that; to which I asked:  “Why did you care?”

She then related how she had spent two semesters at the University of Texas at Austin but had fled away from there to Denton to get away from the drug crowd that she had fallen in with.  She said that she had now decided to go back down there and join her old crowd.  She said that she needed to lease a car to get back there but found that she could not unless she had a credit card.  She wanted to ask me if I would loan her my American Express Card so that she could lease a car.

I told her that I understood, but that I did not think that going back to Austin to rejoin a drug crowd was a very wholesome thing to be doing.

At that point she hung her head and haltingly said that she agreed.  She then said:  “I know what I should be doing.  I should be going to Dallas Baptist University and getting a nursing degree.”

Bing!!!

She had no idea that I was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Dallas Baptist University.  I asked her if she lived near there, and she said that she lived in walking distance in an apartment.  I got her address and told her to meet me at 8:00 o’clock the next morning in front of her apartment.

The next morning I took her down all the way to Dallas Baptist University.  We walked straight into the President’s office.  He was a very powerful man.  He had been Chief of Staff to the President of the U.S. in the White House.  He had been Senior Vice President of one of America’s largest oil companies and was still on the Board of Trustees for Billy Graham’s Evangelistic Organization.  He was a man of experience and action.

I told him that his girl needed to be enrolled there and that she did not have much money.  He did not ask us to go around to the different departments and wait in line to get her enrolled.  He had a senior person from each office come straight there to us…..from the Registrar’s office, the Financial Aids office, from the Academic Deans’ office, the Student Residence’s office, and all the others.

In less than an hour this young lady was enrolled in Dallas Baptist University, had financial aid help, and had her first semester’s class schedule.

Two years later I saw her again at a university function.  She was doing great.  She was a member of two Christian Service organizations and making good grades.  Later I learned that she had graduated with honors and was engaged to a fine young man.

You can say that it was my imagination that my Suburban took control of itself and pulled into that Shell station and parked itself behind that little building.  But I swear to you that it did it all on its own to my total astonishment.

This was one of the most incredible men who ever lived in the United States.  He so loved this country, and spent his life trying to make sure it stayed on the right course.

He was born October 8, 1890 and named Edward Vernon “Eddie” Rickenbacker.  When he was still quite young, he raced four time in the Indianapolis 500.  They called him “Fast Eddie”.

When the First World War broke out he was sent to France and since he was such a famous driver, his first assignment was to be the driver for General Pershing.  However, he wanted to get into the action, and got transferred to the Air Service.  Whatever organization Rickenbacker entered, he soon “went to the top”.  And he soon became commanding officer of the 94^th Aero Pursuit Squadron.  Germany’s Red Baron was dominating the skies there, but his squadron was responsible for destroying 69 enemy aircraft, the highest number shot down by any American squadron.  Flying over 300 combat hours, Eddie Rickenbacker personally shot down 26 enemy aircraft, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his exploits.

He wrote a book about his flying activities in that war.  It is called Fighting the Flying Circus.  Here is just one little excerpt from it:  “… three-quarters of an hour of gasoline remained … and no compass.  Then I thought of the north star!  Glory be!  There she shines!  I had been going west instead of south ……Keeping the star behind my rudder I flew south for fifteen minutes, then … found myself above the River Meuse…….. picked up our faithful searchlight and ten minutes later I landed …..As I walked across the field to my bed I looked up …..and repeated most fervently, ‘Thank you my God!'”   Eddie was a very Godly man!

In his flying exploits he miraculously escaped death so many times.  In his book here is what he wrote about those times: “I want to make it clear that this escape and the others were not the result of any super ability or knowledge on my part. I wouldn’t be alive today if I had to depend on that.  I realized then, as I headed for France on one wing, that there had to be something else… I had seen others die, brighter and more able than I. I knew there was a power. I believe in calling upon it for aid and for guidance.  I am not such an egotist as to believe that God has spared me because I am I.  I believe there is work for me to do and that I am spared to do it, just as you are.”

When he came back to the US, he started his own automobile company.  Before he sold it, he created many technological innovations such as the first four-wheel brake system.  As I mentioned before, whatever he tried, he would go right to the top.

In 1927 he bought the Indianapolis Speedway where he had once raced.  He then went to work for Eastern Airlines and then actually bought the whole company.

The Great Depression was about over and the country was healing, but when Franklin Roosevelt became president, his anti-business, Socialist policies put businesses back in a tailspin.  Rickenbacker violently opposed those Roosevelt New Deal policies as creating a “socialized welfare state,” which drew criticism from the liberal media.  Yes, they were liberal even back then.  In fact, Roosevelt’s administration even ordered NBC Radio not to broadcast Rickenbacker’s remarks.

When Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court, Eddie knew that such would destroy our Democratic Republic, just like it would now.  He went on an all-out crusade to stop it.  He recruited enough Democratic Congressmen to succeed in stopping it.

He wrote way back then:  “Freedom is not a physical object. It is a spiritual and a moral environment … The evil of liberalism is its emphasis on material things and its disdain for the spiritual and moral resources that we call liberty.  The liberal would sweep aside the constitutional restraints upon government in a blind rush to supply food, clothes, houses and financial security from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave for everybody …”

Rickenbacker explained that liberals view people collectively, while  “… the conservative knows that to regard man of a part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.”

He went on to add:  “A government that is large enough to give you all you want is large enough to take all you own first.”

In 1942, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson asked Rickenbacker to go on a special mission to the Pacific to inspect our military bases.  Flying from Hawaii to New Guinea to meet with General Douglas MacArthur, the plane’s inadequate navigational equipment resulted in them being hundreds of miles off-course.  Out of fuel, the plane ditched in the ocean, October 21, 1942.

For 24 days, in almost hopeless conditions, Eddie Rickenbacker and seven others drifted aimlessly on the open sea.  Lt. James s Whittaker wrote a book about their ordeal.  He wrote that they shivered wet all night but baked in the burning sun all day, and fought off sharks.  When all seemed lost, they pulled their three little boats together and had a pray meeting.  They recited the Lord’s Prayer together and then Private Johnny Bartek got out his Testament and  Col. Adamson read from the 31st through the 34th verses of the sixth chapter of Matthew: “Therefore, take ye no thought, saying: What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For these are things the heathen seeketh. For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Rickenbacker was deeply impressed by those verses and told all there that God was going to take care of them.  They would have all given-up if he had not kept encouraging them.  However, things became so bad that Lt. James Whittaker wrote:  “Col. James C. Adamson … suddenly raised himself over the side of the raft and slid into the water. Quick as a flash, Rick had him.”

Rick, as they called him, was not going to have any quitters among them.  He had them read that passage from Mathew again, and suddenly a big sea gull came and started flying above them.  They all prayed that it would land so they could eat it.  Sure enough, it landed right on Rickenbacker’s head.  They had food from the sea gull, and used part of it for bait to catch fish with a hook that they fashioned from a keyring. 

 Whitaker wrote that they prayed again and that I looked over to the left. A cloud that had been fleecy and white a while ago now was darkening by the second.  While I watched, a bluish curtain unrolled from the cloud to the sea. It was rain – and moving toward us! Now everyone saw the downpour, sweeping across the ocean and speckling the waves with giant drops.

Rickenbacker shouted out thanks to God.  And Whitaker wrote:  “Another minute and we were being deluged by sheets of cold water that splashed into our parched mouths and sluiced the caked salt off our burned and stinging bodies. We cupped our hands to guide the life-giving rivulets down our throats …We soaked and wrung out our shirts until all the salt was washed out of them. Then we saturated them again and wrung the water into our mouths.”

Eventually a Navy ship found them in that empty part of the Pacific. 

Rickenbacker began radio broadcasts to encourage the people of our country.  He wrote in another book:  “I pray to God every night of my life to be given the strength and power to continue my efforts to inspire in others the interest, the obligation and the responsibilities that we owe to this land for the sake of future generations – for my boys and girls – so that we can always look back when the candle of life burns low and say,  ‘Thank God I have contributed my best to the land that contributed so much to me.'”

One woman wrote in after listening to one of his radio broadcasts:  “We listened to your radio broadcasts and now we know why you were saved, as we have needed someone in this good country of ours who was not afraid to speak their convictions …… The history of our country shows that in every crisis God has always produced a man strong enough for the time and we feel strongly that you were the man for this time.”

Eddie Rickenbacker died July 23, 1973.  Jimmy Dolittle, of the famous Dolittle’s Raiders, spoke at his memorial service at Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church.

---

This is a part of one of the chapters of my new book which is soon to be published.  I hope you will buy a copy when it comes out.  Also, if you think others on your contact list would like these stories, do forward my site to them…… www.truetexantales.com …… and suggest they sign-up for the site on the Texas flag.

This was one incredible woman.  She was born in Missouri but wound up with her husband and two young children in Sherman, Texas.  At the very worst part of the great depression, her husband just left her and the children.  She figured that if they were not going to starve, she had better get a job. 

She went downtown and walked around the square.  She picked out the store that she liked best and went in and asked to see the manager.  She made it into his office and presented her case.  The manager said:  “Let me see if I have got this right, lady.  There are a host of people outside desperately wanting a job.  So, you walked around the square and picked out my store to come and work for.”   Mary said:  “That is correct.”

The manger explained that he didn’t need any more employees and that besides, he had a list of job applicants a “mile long”.   However, Mary was quite insistent, and finally proposed to work for no salary, only on commission.  The manger was so taken-aback by this that he just agreed.  So, she went down to work.

On that very first day, Mary observed that most everything in the store had a price that ended in 95 or 98 or 99 cents.  She knew that women in those days most all mended their own clothing and were always needing another spool of thread.  So, she put the tree with spools of thread up by the cash register, and had the women take their change in spools of thread which were priced in those days at one cent per spool. 

The manager was so impressed that he hired her to a regular job before the day was over.

She then moved her children down to Dallas and studied to be a CPA.  She became the bookkeeper/accountant for a prominent furniture store.  At that store she observed that women would come in and buy a whole complement of furniture, but that they had no idea about what colors in their home would look best with the furniture, and especially what accessories would dress-up the room to go best with the furniture.  Those thoughts never left her. 

She eventually got a job with a fellow who was selling such accessories on the “party plan”.  In “nothing flat” she had 500 women in her pyramid group.  When the owner refused to pay the money and bonuses she had earned under the plan since it was so large, she left and formed her own company. 

She named it Home Interiors and Gifts.  She then needed a loan to furnish the capital to grow her company.  She went around to most all the banks in downtown Dallas with no success.  Finally, one banker was so intrigued with her, that he made her the loan.  Later, when she was putting millions of dollars into that bank’s coffers, was he ever glad that he had decided to have faith in Mary Crowley.  She stayed very loyal to that bank.

She not only recruited a multitude of ladies to work for her direct selling company, she was so influential with her powerful personality, that she influenced those ladies to totally remake their lives for the better and become close to God.   Those ladies’ husbands loved her too since she insisted that her ladies take special care of their husbands in all ways.

Mary was especially noted for her “sayings” that she would give her ladies to inspire them.  The company even had a little book of her sayings printed.  It has a powder blue cover with gold writing on the cover. 

Mary would tell those ladies, all across America, as she pointed at them:  “Ladies, you be somebody; God didn’t have time to make a nobody!!!”

She trained her friend Mary Kay Ash how to do direct selling.  Mary Kay concentrated on selling cosmetics and skin care products.  They made an unwritten deal with each other that Mary Crowley would never sell cosmetics, and Mary Kay would never sell home interior products.

As a reward, Mary Kay would have her best producers get one of her pink Cadillacs for a year.  However, Mary Crowley more concentrated on “mink”.  To her mink represented success and “having arrived”.  Over and over she would tell her ladies……..”Think Mink!”  She became famous for it.

Mary had special philanthropies that she gave too, such as her Cancer Research Center, but on top of all that, she gave away approximately 8 million dollars every year to various other special causes, like putting certain young people through Dallas Baptist University with a full scholarship.

Mary just didn’t fool with the trivial.  One of her famous sayings had to do with problems that would keep most folks up at night worrying about them.  Mary would say:  “I am not going to worry about that tonight.  I am going to turn that over to God to handle and just go on to sleep.  He is going to be up all night anyway!”

She was particularly interested in Dallas Baptist University and its high academics set into a Christian context.  That is where we first met.  I can’t really describe it, but we became so closely bonded together.  It was out of the ordinary and most unusual.  When she went off that board, having served her allotted terms, I am sure that is why I was asked to be Chairman of the Board of Trustees, when I was way too young for that job.  Whatever Mary wanted, she usually got. 

 On quite a few occasions, Mary Crowley and Mary Kay Ash would have me to lunch at some big prominent luncheon spot in Dallas.   They would have some specific project that they would want me to handle.   But on those occasions, there would be 50 or 60 other women in there having lunch.  They would all be watching these two famous and well known ladies sitting on both sides of this young man and earnestly talking to him.  It was quite obvious that they would really like to know what those two well known ladies were telling him.

Mary was so important to that company.  When a big group of her ladies would be having a meeting somewhere in America is was imperative that she be there.  No substitute would do.  As a result, they had two Fan Jet Falcon’s and a compliment of pilots to be sure that she got there.  The 2nd Falcon was just in case the first one may have some problem to keep it from flying that day.  Mary was quite low-key as respects showing off, but her people insisted on those jet Falcons.

Late in her career she built herself a new house in one of Dallas’ “Silk Stocking” areas along Inwood road.  I went there many times, but the first time, her house-warming occasion, was most impressive.   “Everyone” was there.  I distinctly remember visiting with Tom Landry (coach of the Dallas Cowboy’s) and his wife.  Mary took me on a tour of it.  I have seen some big closets.  I have a big closet, but I have never seen one like the one in her bedroom.  It was so long, that when you looked down it, past all that plethora of fur coats, it was like the two sides came together in the far distance.

Out back of the house on a little island in the creek she had built a private chapel.  What I remember most about it was the high-backed chairs that Billy Graham had given her for it.  They had come from a nunnery in Europe where the nuns would kneel in the seat of the chairs for their morning and evening prayers.

So, folks, I have gone through all this about Mary to just relate one little story concerning the theme of my new book. 

At the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas in the late 1970’s there was this monster, prestigious dinner to honor a famous dignitary.  All manner of people were there, including the President of the United States.   Among several parts of the program, toward the end, Mary was to speak for a short time, W. Clement Stone, who founded and was President of the Combined Insurance Companies of America and the founder of the Positive Mental Attitude Movement, was to speak for a short time, then the President was to speak, and finally Mary was to give a prayer to finish off the evening.

In order to accommodate all the dignitaries at the head table, they had constructed five levels behind it.   Each level had continuous tables for eating with chairs behind them.  By the time you got to the fifth level it was really high.   I estimated at least over a full story in height.

I was placed in the next to the top level.

Mary now had cancer again.  Most people there knew that this was probably the last time they would ever be seeing her in a public setting.  The night before the dinner Mary called me.  She knew that this was probably the last time she would ever be able to greet all the people there who would want to come up to see her.  She also knew how tough and protective that her son could be…….that as soon as she was finished, he would just grab her and whisk her out. 

She told me that the moment she finished her prayer, she wanted me to be standing right there beside her to shield her and make sure that she would be able to greet all those dear well-wishers.  Mary said:  “Ronald, you be right there beside me when I finish!!!  Do you understand???”

So, the evening progressed.  However, there was one near tragedy.  Most of us had heard W. Clement Stone’s standard life story speech several times.  But now he was really “up in years”.  When he got up there in front of that mike he was speaking again as he had done so many, many times.  He just started into his standard speech.  We all knew that it lasted nearly an hour.   No one wanted to wait an hour to hear the President.  I was just cringing.  The Master of Ceremonies for the evening didn’t know what to do.  There was only one person there who could gracefully salvage the evening,…… Mary Crowley.  Bless her heart, she slipped up there, put her arm around old Clement and led him back to his chair.  I thought I could hear a sigh of relief across that whole vast audience.

But I had my problem.  How was I going to be able to get down from my perch to be standing beside Mary just as she finished her prayer?  Particularly how was I ever going to be able to get past all those Secret Service guys who were guarding the President.  To come down those stairs while she was praying was going to look so out of place, which is exactly what those guys would be looking for.

The plan that I devised was to step up to the top level and walk behind all those people eating on the top level and go all the way down to the end and get down those end stairs someway.  Ringing in my head were Mary’s words:  “Ronald, you be there!!!”

So just as she started her prayer, I stepped up to the top level and started along behind the people there.  I looked down and saw how very far it was to the concrete way down below.  I remember thinking, there should be some kind of railing here.  This is dangerous. 

I hadn’t gotten but a very short distance when for some strange reason this big fellow just lurched back in his chair.  I wasn’t expecting or anticipating such.  He just toppled me off.   I was headed down, head first, toward that distant concrete.

I don’t expect you to believe what happened next.  I can’t even believe it.  But so help me God, it is absolutely true.  I just floated all the way down.  I landed prone on my back as lightly as a feather.  I have never ever felt such an absolutely peaceful feeling in my whole life as while I was floating down……..no broken neck, no broken leg!.

Now I was on the same level as the speaker’s rostrum.  I walked around that built up structure, past two Secret Service guys, trying to look like I belonged there as best as I could.  I was not stopped, and just as Mary finished her prayer, I was standing by her side.

Folks, please believe me.  That floating descent was no accident!!!