October 22: Tallahassee to Mobile

We headed away from Calvary OPC in Tallahassee but quickly drove into oncoming thunderstorms. We saw the blackness come at us and soon we were in driving rain. It lasted just long enough to be stressful, but not to ruin the whole afternoon. I had put on Hymns Triumphant tape as we left church and it cheered us those miles through beautiful rolling panhandle country. After a while, we put on C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters (hopefully more on that later). We had been listening, the day before to a novel on tape that I had come across in the library entitled The Will by one Reed Arvin, son of old family friends who were attorneys in Kansas and fine Christians. The novel has a lot of father/son relationships so much as to make it a prominent theme. I wondered if Reed were working out his own relationship. But what a wonderful father he had. We did not finish the novel until the second half of the trip. I put it aside for Lewis because I joyfully take seriously Isaiah 58:13-14:

"If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Which brings me parenthetically to my internal mental struggles over how I should feed M and me as the day wore on. I cannot censor others, but for my own part, I would not only be at rest through the Lord's Day, but leave others able to rest, whether they choose to or not. Had I been alone, I would have fasted the rest of the day, waiting on the Lord to provide. I had hoped to perhaps visit an evening service at a PCA church along the way, and there may have encountered hospitality.

We came upon Pensacola way too early for the evening service at the OPC, planted recently by the Tallahassee church. At Pensacola we got off the highway, intending to locate the OPC church and thinking about returning from Mobile later in the evening after I had checked M into our inn. We followed a state highway that paralleled the interstate to the next exit. We decided to see what the town was about and to take a break. Must have got on the wrong highway because all we saw for miles were car dealerships. I ran in to a MacDonald's to use the bathroom and we continued our drive west.

The approach to Mobile was quite stunning. We were on a causeway for several miles, headed west toward clouds graciously covering most of the western sun. There was enough sunlight peeking through to make it very beautiful. We drove west through downtown Mobile long enough that I had worried that I had taken the wrong directions. We passed long blockfuls of large, old mansions on a wide boulevard overhung by Spanish moss on the giant trees. M began waxing reminiscent of Mobile and all of Alabama where they spent several productive years (Cal was born in Tuscaloosa) and where she and Jack had attended press association meetings in Mobile.

We arrived at our destination long before sunset, a place I had found online the week before. It was the one "splurge" of our trip and well worth it. And I'll recommend the Kate Shepard House Bed and Breakfast to anyone! As we pulled in to the driveway we were met by KoaBear, the chow dog, followed quickly by owner, Wendy James. She showed us our wonderful rooms, told us what was available for food in the area (not much on Sunday evenings), and welcomed us to a glass of sherry which we enjoyed on the front porch. When she brought us fresh, warm cookies, I asked her to take a photo of us to share with you:



The few minutes on the porch with our glasses of sherry, the smell of Alabama in the air, the southern hospitality made M pensive to the point of tears. "I wish I knew that Jack knows how happy I am."



Wendy was kind enough to let me use their computer to look up local PCA or OPC churches. I was still hopeful to make an evening service. There were several that I found including the one pastored by Ken Wendland, but the only one with an evening service was already in progress by the time I found it. So my mental stresses regarding what to do with M who did not wish to go with me were over.

We decided to catch some supper at the closest restaurant. Which was also her favorite kind of food! On the way to supper I got a cell phone call from Susan, so we sat in the car outside the restaurant for ten minutes while I chatted with her. The area of town on a Sunday night seemed dubious, but an elderly couple came out and recommended it to us. We entered Wintzell's Oyster House and were seated almost immediately. The walls up to the ceilings were stuffed with funny quotes on colored papers, and the waiters all had colored Wintzell Oyster House tee-shirts on. Of course M was in heaven having a chance to eat oysters in any form she wanted. She told me the story of the time she was at a nice function with her husband and was served her beloved oyster stew. She asked for a second bowl of it. And then a third, astounding everyone with them. And though she ordered a cup of oyster stew as appetizer at Wintzell's this night, they mistakenly brought her a bowl!

The wall sayings kept us busy at conversation, giggling at some of the sayings, marveling at the apparent age of the restaurant, wondering how long it took to fill the walls. Her fried oysters came and so did my blackened shrimp salad. And soon her memory was figuring out that it was this very restaurant, but back in a side room, that she and Jack had met with other press association folks fifty years earlier. Sure enough, the restaurant is old enough for that. Oh, M was happy. Oysters and good memories and a connection to the past. She had not thought that she could make this trip Back to Bountiful, but all along our way the Lord's providence delighted us with things we never could have planned.

On our return from dinner I went to the very charming Mobile Bay Room and Mother to Isabelle's room. I spent a fascinating hour leafing through a book of Mobile's history, and one of the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Then enjoyed a chat with Cal whom I must bring back here, a bath in the old-fashioned black enamel clawfoot tub, and a good night of sleep in a deliciously dressed queen-sized bed.








The next morning Wendy (above in her kitchen; and that is the butler's pantry off the dining room) fixed us a fantastic breakfast of an artistic fruit salad, praline pecan French toast, some fabulous egg dish which now I can't remember (but I lingered long over every bite), baked apples with crumb topping, and individually steamed cups of coffee. She honored us with her company and told us all about the Kate Shepard House, their short history with it, and the fascinating story of the boxes and boxes of papers and personal effects of the extended Shepard family that they found in the attic and recently turned over to historians that were thrilled to find holes in the history of the War between the States filled by letters and receipts. Wendy teared up as she told us of letters written by women waiting for the return of their men and one written by a mother asking how much a mother should bear: now they wanted her nine or ten year old son whom she needed to help her on the farm; her son and husband already dead. And we laughed to tears when she told us of the staid gentleman-historian who had sat over the papers at her dining room table all day, answering her pressing questions at the end of the day if he thought they were of any value: "Miss Wendy" he drawled in his South Carolina accent, sitting back in his chair, and slowly removing his glasses, "I'm peein' in mah pants."

M and I hated to leave, but the time came to press on. We've made a friend in Bill and Wendy James and hope to see them again sometime.