It’s worth it all

Many times when I sit here typing out an entry, I wonder if anyone besides me is getting anything out of what I have to say.

Tonight, I don't feel that so much. I received quite a reward from God(I don't look at such things any other way, and perhaps you'll understand what I mean when I explain a little more).

Last Friday at the radio station, when I was in the midst of producing our afternoon talk show, I got a call from a man that I did not expect in the least to hear from.

Unlike most of my friends, he doesn't know me from the radio. One reason for that is that he hails from a small town in the Midwest, Bethalto, Illinois.

How then, does Bill Flack know of me, and consider me a friend, even though he can't hear my work...and he'd never spoken directly to me in my life?

I'm almost embarrassed to say why...he knows me from the articles I write for Southen Gospel News, and from this blog!

Mr. Flack lives in a rural area, and has no access to a computer. But he told me today that he has friends who read what I write, and make copies for him. For you see, Mr. Flack is quite a gospel music fan.

In just the past six months, he has sent me a number of cassette tapes of vintage gospel music, and even a videotape of Don Smith(ex-Blackwood Brothers bass and whose radio show I co-host now)on a Chicago TV program with James Blackwood, Alden Toney, and Hilton Griswold(all members of the BBQ when Don was with them). These are quite generous gifts, and priceless to me because I love classic gospel quartet music, as does Mr. Flack.

Unbeknownst to me, after reading my writing and becoming a fan, he tracked me down at my "day job", and promptly "adopted" me as a good friend, something I'm now most grateful for.

All these things he decided to send me at KMJ, and he also revealed one other bit of information about himself that I found quite interesting.

Mr. Flack grew up in the same town as did my good friend(and ex-Courier)Neil Enloe. He remembers Neil from his youth and the barbershop that Neil's father had for many years in Wood River, Illinois...not far from St. Louis.

Not only that, but Mr. Flack remembers attending high school with Neil's younger brother, Phil...and them being good friends. Mr. Flack told me that his father and Clifton Enloe sang in a gospel quartet back then as well...and that the Enloes' oldest son, Dave(Neil and Phil's oldest brother)attends his church now. As you might expect, I found Mr. Flack to be a delight, and we had a great phone chat today while I was working at the station!

Mr. Flack wanted me to state for the record that however many good things I could say about the Enloe family, they wouldn't be enough! I couldn't help but agree with him on that score.

But even more than that, I was genuinely touched that a man like Mr. Flack, who has no computer, decided that he wanted to be my friend for no other reason that he liked what I wrote.

I'm well aware that what I write here, even though it represents me at a given point in time, is of varying quality. Some of my stuff is good, others of it bad, and maybe even more somewhere in between, with no meaning to anyone except to those who are interested in what I have to say. And knowing who reads what I write here and for SGN, I wonder if it really does my readers any good at all, as I said at the outset of this post.

And to know that there is a man in rural Illinois, who has to depend on friends to be able to even have the remotest familiarity with me and/or what I write, who genuinely appreciates me and what I do...is truly humbling and renders me practically speechless(quite a feat, I know, say folks who know me best).

It makes me feel truly blessed...to know that SOMEBODY is out there listening(or reading), and gets a blessing from what I do.

So in a real sense, my writing is as much for the Bill Flacks of this world as it is for me.

As the old poem reads, I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

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