My goal of becoming involved in meaningful outside work was achieved in
March, 1989, when Arlette and I joined Arkansas Baptists’ Nailbenders for
Jesus. Although we had been willing, when asked, to
be a part of the group starting Pinnacle Baptist Church, we were even more
willing to be Nailbenders, for that opportunity was the fulfillment of another
of our retirement objectives.
We learned about the Nailbenders following our return home from a month
of western travel in early 1989, wherein Tolar, El Paso, and Fountain Valley,
California were major stopping points.
We stopped
in Tolar to gather several hundred pounds of unharvested pecans from Virgil’s
orchard, then helped dispose of them. I
contracted a cold while working in the chilly, moist January air, so we stayed
in Tolar until my cough and fever subsided, then headed west. We spent a long weekend in El Paso, where we
visited with (1) Merle and Jamie Barnes – friends from our Austin and
Weatherford days – and (2) Sally and Fred Garner – Arlette and Sally had both
taught second graders at Little Rock’s Fair Park Elementary School. We attended First Christian Church with
Merle and Jamie on Sunday.
We left El
Paso in a snowstorm, but it lessened in intensity as we drove westward, so our
progress wasn’t seriously impaired.
Desert temperatures were low even after we drove out of the snow –
twenty-nine degrees Tuesday morning in Benson, Arizona. On Wednesday morning, after overnighting at
an RV park in Indio, California, we heard that snowfall had caused shutdown of
I-10 at Banning Pass, so we waited until midmorning before leaving the park,
hoping as we left that trucks would have made the highway passable by the time
we reached the snow-covered area. The
highway was indeed passable, but trucks splashed muddy slush all over our
pickup and RV as we traversed the Banning Pass area; the slush dried to a brown
crust when we returned to lowlands and dry air, so we looked rather
disreputable when we reached Fountain Valley, where we (1) visited several days
with Norm Wakefield (Twila’s oldest son) and his family and (2) went
sightseeing in the Los Angeles area.
Late winter rains washed most of the mud off the pickup as we drove
around, and I washed the brown crust off the RV in Norm’s yard.
We decided
to take the southernmost route home, so went to San Diego, then eastward on I-8
to its junction with I-10. We detoured
from I-10 to see Tombstone (site of the famed OK Corral), Bisbee (copper
mines), and Douglas. We spent nights at
Lordsburg, Van Horn, and Abilene as we followed I-10, I-20, and I-30 homeward,
arriving back in Little Rock at the end of February.
On Monday after we got home I read about Nailbenders for Jesus in the Arkansas Baptist
News-Magazine; the group, organized in 1988, needed more volunteers. The name of the group implied that
membership didn’t require extensive carpentry experience, of which I had none,
so I decided to investigate. I wrote
Frank Allan, the group’s coordinator, on Tuesday, telling him of my interest;
he telephoned on Wednesday, saying, “Be in Center Ridge Saturday!”
Although that organization wasn’t the first such group of
which I’d been aware (I’d seen articles in RV magazines about volunteer groups
who did renovation and construction work at church-related facilities – e.g.,
camps or other group assembly facilities – and was about to submit an
application for membership in one of them), the Nailbenders offered the
handiest opportunity I’d seen.
Arlette and I went to Center Ridge, and to most Nailbender projects for
three years. Other commitments and
health problems among family members slowed our participation the fourth year (1992),
but we continued to go on jobs fairly regularly until the need to help care for
my mother, beginning in mid-1994, made regular participation impossible. Fortunately, the Nailbender group had become
large enough by then that I wasn’t really needed.
Too many
volunteers on a job is almost as bad as having too few. First, workers constantly “scrambling” for
power tools, ladders, and other equipment can’t be used efficiently. Second, the host church must pay the cost of
utilities used by the volunteers’ RVs.
Third, and in some ways, worst, the people of the church for which the
work is being done must feed workers and their wives at noon each day, which
obligation can be a strain on the cooks in small congregations.
[The essence of an agreement between a church and the
Nailbenders is that the volunteers will work for two weeks and the church will
(1) provide RV parking spaces with access to water, electric, and sewer
facilities, (2) feed the volunteers and their wives the noon meal on workdays,
and (3) provide snacks and drinks for morning and afternoon breaks. (Most
churches more than meet their commitments, providing such things as potluck
dinners on Sundays and fish fries or cookouts on one or more evenings while the
job is in progress.) During the two
weeks of a typical job the Nailbenders will get a building “in the dry,” with
windows and exterior doors installed, and often get all sheet rock hung.]
We were free to
work again after my mother entered the Missouri Baptist Home in
Ozark, Missouri in 1996, but since then have gone on only those jobs where
there was some particular reason for us to participate (e.g., expansions or
additions to facilities we had worked on in prior years).
◊◊◊
I thoroughly enjoyed Nailbender projects in the early years when we
were really needed; I learned a lot about construction work, and the fellowship
was great.
The work
was hard, but good-humored folks often made it fun. As an example, Brother Don Vuncannon, the pastor of New Hope
Baptist Church in Jonesboro, worked alongside Nailbenders when we constructed
their new sanctuary. Brother Don was a
pretty good carpenter, but wouldn’t work at heights, telling us the Lord said,
“Lo, I am with you always,” not “High, I am with you.”
Nailbender wives, called “Grandmas on the Go,” were an integral part
of the organization. Several, including
Arlette, involved themselves in church outreach activities while the men
constructed new facilities. They also
set up refreshments for morning and afternoon breaks for the men, then cleaned
up afterwards – sandwiching those duties around hot “42” or Scrabble games.
Arlette’s handiwork still appears in four churches where we
worked with the Nailbenders. She
painted a baptistry scene at Center Ridge, our first job, then another later that year at
Markbrook church, near Blevins. The
baptistry scene she painted for Twin Lakes Baptist (near Lakes Catherine and
Hamilton) has since been moved to the hallway separating the sanctuary and
educational building. In more recent
years she painted a portrait of Mr. Ray Evers at Parkers Chapel in El Dorado,
in whose remembrance an educational wing of their building was named; the
portrait was unveiled at the dedication of that wing, a service to which we
were invited (and attended).
Arlette and I were asked to sing duets from time to time at the
churches where the Nailbenders worked.
We sang a number of songs over the years, but the most requested was
“How Long Has It Been” (especially if Chuck
Doty was on the job); some of the rest may have tired of hearing it, but we
enjoyed singing it. We expanded the
duet to a quartet when the Elmores and McConnells were on a job. Norma Elmore sang soprano, Arlette alto,
Jack bass, and I tenor. A malignancy
ultimately took Jack’s life, but by then the Ogdens had joined the group, so
Richard sang bass with us a few times.
The quartet did several old gospel songs, but my favorite, and the one I
think we did best, was “Maybe It’s You, and Maybe It’s Me.” We sang it during a service at Friendship
Baptist Church in Clinton; that service was recorded by one of the church
members, but I never saw/heard the videotape, so don’t know how it really
sounded.
◊◊◊
Arlette and I made many friends on Nailbender jobs. All were fine people, but I’ll mention only
three couples here:
·
Bob and Sue Nelson became friends both on and off the job. Bob (a native of Erie, Pennsysvania) met Sue
(a native of Erath County, Texas) during World War II when he was stationed at
Camp Bowie, just outside
Brownwood. He married Sue when he left
military service and took her home to Erie, where he spent 34 years at GE’s
locomotive manufacturing division.
After retirement they settled in Arkansas, ten miles north of Jonesboro,
where he built a nice two-story log home (with basement, as in northern
climes). They joined the Nailbenders at
its inception in 1988; Bob was soon lead man.
Having
become good friends on the job, we took several long RVing trips with Bob and
Sue during our years as Nailbenders; I’ll discuss those trips below (see MORE
RV TRIPS). (Unfortunately, Bob’s
days of constructing churches and RV travel are over, for he died in May, 2002
after a long illness. Sue moved near
her daughter in Ohio shortly after Bob’s death.)
·
Dennis Hill joined the Nailbenders when I did. His wife, Marie, didn’t come to Center
Ridge, but was at most jobs the next few years. Arlette and I became well acquainted with Dennis and Marie after we
bought a 1981 Coachmen mini-motorhome at Paragould (while constructing a
building for Harmony Baptist Church) and needed some way of carrying our 1986
Escort wagon to Nailbender job sites and on other RV travels. Dennis suggested we build a trailer in his
shop at El Dorado (where he and one of his sons manufactured boat trailers), so
Arlette and I spent two or three weeks in El Dorado one winter while Dennis and
I built a nice trailer. We had a good
time visiting with them those weeks, then again a year or two later when I
helped him (and several other Nailbenders) build a new house just west of his
shop.
·
Ray Begy also joined the Nailbenders at the same time
I did; he came to Center Ridge in a borrowed van. He purchased a trailer when we constructed the building for
Harmony Baptist in Paragould a couple of months later, after which he and his
wife (Irene) seldom, if ever, missed a job.
Ray was well into his seventies when he joined the group, but could
outwork men years younger. Ray’s larynx
had been removed, so he spoke in a hoarse whisper.
Ray always
wore heavy work shoes, even when working in the trusses. He purchased a new pair while on the job in
Paragould, which he said he had gotten at Wal-Mart for only $25, adding, “I
don’t want to buy anything that’s going to last longer than I do.” Several years later he and Irene bought a
new RV; by then he was past eighty. I
reminded him that he had told me he never bought anything that was going to
last longer than he did. He just
laughed.
Ray
regularly reminded me of an incident at St. Francis, when he and I were putting
up “nailers” for soffit material; he held the 2 x 2 material in place against
the sub-fascia as I “fired” the power nailer.
He would get the 2 x 2 on the mark, then whisper “Shoot!” when he was ready
for the nail. We were rolling along
well until either (1) he didn’t have a 2 x 2 properly aligned or (2) I didn’t
shoot in the correct place, for the nail pierced the meaty part of his hand
after going through the 2 x 6 sub-fascia.
Fortunately, no bones were hit, so he wasn’t seriously injured, but he
was taken to an emergency room for a tetanus shot; he was back working with me
before the day ended.
Ray’s age finally caught
up with him, so he told the group on the November, 1999 job at Chidester he
wouldn’t be back for future jobs. We had
a “going away” party for him and Irene, so I was asked to tell things I
remembered about him (inasmuch as I had known him since he first joined the
group); naturally, I included his “I won’t buy anything that will last longer
than I do” resolution – and he reminded me of his “pierced” hand.
Ray died in early 2000,
reportedly of pneumonia.