Yellow Legal Pad

 October 1, 2020

“When I write a letter or note, I have to jot down my thoughts on scrap paper before I begin.” Our conversation had ranged from what I have been doing lately (remodeling a bedroom, working my bees, leveling and seeding our lawn) to how she and my father started out married life on his salary of $25/week and did quite well, even though they didn’t have any extra for anything. They were happy to have enough to live on. We went from there to politics, reminiscences of days long gone by, to how we organize our thoughts. Mom was a secretary for years, working for Paddy Hill elementary school when I was a kid, to being secretary for our church during my teenage years. Dad at one time suggested that she work for Kodak where she could earn more money, but she said, “I believe this is where the Lord wants me.” End of conversation. When she spoke of always having enough, it was with the satisfaction of having been generous to others whose need was greater than her own.

We to to talking about how kids in this COVID-besotted era are having to do their schoolwork on laptops and iPads, and how difficult it is proving to be for elementary kids who need more interpersonal connection. That’s when she mentioned how she wrote letters and notes to people. I understand. I’m more or less in a sermon preparation group with three other pastors. I attend when I can. We sit down and brainstorm the text for the week, preparing an outline which each is expected to use on the forthcoming Sunday. The three other pastors, about a generation and a half younger than myself, sit with laptops and iPads, editing comments on Google Drive. Not me. 

I use yellow legal pads. Whenever I approach a Scripture with sermon in mind, I have my trusty legal pad and pencil (never a pen) in hand. I make notes, jotting them all over the pad. It starts out quite orderly, but before I’m done, I have arrows drawn from one thought to another, circled numbers indicating the linear order I intend to follow, tiny squiggles of late arrivals in my thinking that get inserted here and there. I can’t do that on a computer. Only when this background work is done do I move to the iPad to put it in legible and orderly form. 

To each his own. I am one of the last of the manual typewriter generation; those who learned on those bulky machines where one needed digital strength to make the type head actually strike a mark through the ribbon onto the paper. Electric typewriters didn’t make their debut till after I had learned to hit those keys with a force that would destroy the tabs on my iPad. 

I’ve often said I grew up at an ideal time and place in history. America in the 50’s was uniquely the powerhouse of the world, Europe and Asia having been devastated by WWII. I grew up with the big band music of the 40’s, the swing and early rock ‘n’ roll of the 50’s, the British Invasion of the 60’s, and the fledgling Jesus Movement songs of the 70’s. My life was shaped through the golden years of Eisenhower’s presidency, the Camelot years of Kennedy, the unrest of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights, and of course, my having come to faith in Jesus Christ as a pre-teen at Westside Baptist Church in Greece, NY. And here I am today, retired United Methodist pastor, having a wonderful conversation with my 98 year old mother about the goodness of the Lord in our lives. I am blessed, so very blessed!