Charter Communications...

In a world of unstable employment, horrific security issues, and governments on the verge of economic collapse we all have to pick the fight we are willing to “die on that mountain” for… Today, I’m picking my cable, phone and internet provider.

This is a story replete with villains, dashing heroes, swarthy companions, and high adventure. So settle in and enjoy my tale of woe.

April of 2011 found us with a house full of out of town guests during my children’s spring break from school. We began to notice something interesting happening on the television. The channels from two to sixty eight were coming in fuzzy, while the channels above that, were not coming in at all, when you tuned in to the higher channels you got a message on the screen which read,

One moment please

This channel should be available shortly

Ref code: s0012

This began around ten o’clock one night and continued into the next day, so a call was placed to Charter Communications, our provider. They promptly scheduled a call and let me know when to expect the service technician. The Charter minion arrived toward the end of the allotted two hour window and promptly began telling me what the problem was, we had a vcr/dvd combo in line on the cable that was creating a signal issue. I looked at him a bit sideways as he began to inform me that when people put vcrs in line they always mess up the signal. I asked the obvious question at this point, “Then how do you use them?”, which he ignored. I then told him that I didn’t think that was the issue since we’ve had the unit for years and haven’t experienced any problems until the night before. He ignored me again and earnestly maintained that the vcr was the culprit and needed to be removed from the line to ensure a clear signal, so I allowed him to bypass the vcr. The problem remained. He then went into a long explanation that there was obviously an interruption in the signal due to a bad digital cable box. He then went to his truck and retrieved a new box and replaced the old unit. The problem remained. Then, after much head scratching, the minion fell upon an idea that was certainly the issue, a problem with the cable within our home, a poor connection or piece of equipment such as a ground block or splitter was creating a signal drop. He then went to his truck and gathered a length of cable and his trusty ladder. He shimmied up a pole and connected his cable to the main line and ran it across the yard and directly into the cable box. The issue remained.

The minion was at a loss for reasons and words at this point. We were standing in front of the television discussing the issue as he looked about the place at the multiple dogs, mess, wood chips, children, and visitors… along with a plumber who was onsite repairing the oft exploding pipe under the sink.. Yes, it was one of those visits where everything decides to end its own life all at once to make sure we have the best possible time with a house full of people. Attitude was pouring from the minion as he attempted to let us know that Charter was in the process of installing new hi-tech cable in the area. While I spoke and he looked for an exit, God himself intervened and the picture popped into focus. The bag of rancid onions I was waving under the minion’s nose vanished as he became all smiles… He then continued with his explanation of the new cable being the culprit, that the nodes had to have time to switch over from one channel to the next and that we should be fine. The trail of dust he left as he exited the drive way hung around for several hours after his hasty departure from the obvious pit of hell that is our home…

The services continued at their usual lack luster rate of operation (slow internet) over the next few days, until one fateful night… while watching Bill Maher on HBO the picture pixilated and froze, the screen went black and after a few minutes the dread creature returned…

One moment please

This channel should be available shortly

Ref code: s0012

The problem came and went over the rest of the weekend, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours. Monday found me on the phone with Charter, again going over the same story, “All of the channels from two to sixty eight become fuzzy and all of the channels over sixty eight drop completely, including the music channels and on demand.” Another service call was scheduled. The call we had at this point saw a much younger and friendlier minion cautiously approaching the door. He listened to the situation and then began a two hour crawl all over our home, tracing each line for any sign of a loose connection or bad piece of equipment. He came in at the end of his search to ensure us that a bad ground block was the issue, he triumphantly presented the beast which had held our home in the grips of poor service for these many days. I looked upon the twisted, rusty abomination as he smiled down in victory at the lifeless form in the palm of his hand. We whispered in awe that such a small thing had reeked such havoc… I then hit him with the dread conversation stopper, “If this was the culprit, why then, would the issue be there when it was bypassed by the last technician?” The triumphant smile faltered on his sweat laden face… giving way to a slight shoulder shrug and then the hasty offering of the ticket for me to sign as he too sped away in his moment of glory…

The Charter service then continued to limp along over the next week or so… A Saturday evening had rolled around and we had settled in for an evening of watching a movie via ‘on demand‘, we picked one of the newest releases that we wanted to see and ordered the movie for a twenty four hour block. Ten minutes into the movie the pixilation returned and the image froze until on demand went out and gave us an error message, pleading with us in its dying rasp of breath to contact Charter if the problem continued. The problem continued, for four hours, with the usual fuzzy and dropped channels.

Once again I called Charter to offer my displeasure with their service and my hopes that the problem would be rectified, once again the evil witch of Charter mountain assured me that a service technician would arrive the following day to make sure we remain happy with their commitment to quality service.

The following day a service technician did indeed arrive at our home, this time the Charter minion brought a minion of his own… I told the pair of them the entire story, adding that I believed this to be a signal issue coming in from the main line, I truly did not think there was a problem at our location. Promptly ignoring my pleas of sanity, they set about the house crawl once again… This time the creature offered to me as evidence of foul play was a demented splitter that was most assuredly the master of doom, having a few loose wires poking from its side, the splitter laughed up at me from the zip lock bag that now contained its evil... I again voiced my opinion that while it was a good thing that this evil was now vanquished from premises, there must be a larger evil at work here.. I caught few of the minions words as they sped up the driveway headed to the safety of the nearest waffle house…

What followed was a Summer of a few days of allowable service followed by the loss of channels, followed by countless minion crawls, until one day a valiant hero arrived on the scene. This minion assured me that he could, without question, locate and slay the evil that had befallen our home. The crawl began again in earnest. His report told a different tale… “Your signal is too high, I have to call in for a line crew to check for problems…” Exactly fifteen minutes after the minion’s departure a single strike of lightning came down like the very finger of God and smote every Charter service on the property… phone, cable, and internet had all perished in the attack. We called in to report an outage.

The next day saw no sign of life from Charter or their services at all… That evening we readied ourselves for a meal in the village. We were walking to the car when a truck came down the driveway, an obvious line crew had appeared on the scene at last. A small minion jumped from the truck excitedly telling me that he had gone down the road and evened the signal, noticing a burned amplifier on the pole across the road from our place that was the culprit of our outage… He held the creature aloft in triumph as he explained that the lightning had slain it in its duty of providing us quality service. We went in and checked, everything had been restored to its proper function, slow internet, uneven television signal and spotty phone connection. I informed the minion of what the situation was and he told me that he would return to check the line the following week.

Two weeks later the channels began dropping out again. Once again I called Charter and replayed the history of events leading up to the latest call and subsequent line crew visit. This time, however, I spoke to a supervisor… I was, once again, assured of quality service being restored to our location as yet another minion was dispatched to do battle with this lingering evil. The next few days saw three consecutive calls placed and ran, each time the same thing was done, a crawl and assurances of quality service, along with a coupon or two for movie rentals at fifty cents each from on demand. Yes, they were attempting to buy off our silence. On the last service call the team of four, yes four, minions replaced all of the ground blocks, connectors and splitters located on this property. The valiant hero was the lead man on each call. He left us with a literal shrug of the shoulders, a wish for good luck and the statement, “All of our equipment is functioning properly, you’re going to have to call your local power supplier to have them check for voltage fluctuations in your power lines, because that must surely be the reason for all of this… Meanwhile, we have listed your modem to be watched so that if this happens again, we can come out and check the signal to see when it drops out.”

The next day I called the power company and they sent a crew out to check for voltage fluctuations. They arrived twenty minutes after I called, metered the line for a bit and told me everything was fine. We talked while the meter was reading the voltage. The two gentleman laughed heartily when I told them the reason for the call. They then informed me that they do several of these calls for Charter each day, “Fluctuating voltage is the out they use when they can’t locate the problem.”

A few days of normal service went by when the dormant evil once again awoke while watching a movie. I was positively hasty, as tree beard would say, when I phoned the evil witch lord atop Charter mountain to let her know that this was entering the realm of ridiculous. I told her that I wanted to speak to a local service supervisor, she assured me that she would have one call. No one called. Later that day yet another minion arrived at my door, not knowing anything about the ongoing saga, I relayed my tale of sorrow to him. He phoned his supervisor to “get his take” on the pile of refuse that had settled in over us. The supervisor promptly told the minion to vacate the property as he would have a “level two” minion dispatched immediately to our place to take care of this once and for all.. A couple of hours later the level two minion approached me in obvious fear and empathy. He was here to “shoot the lines for noise” noise being any interference that could originate from anything electrical that operates on the same frequency as the signal, causing a disruption in said signal. Level two minion then proceeded about his noise shooting endeavors, checking the “modem report” telling me that the signal had been correct on both the incoming and out going feeds, I pointed to the two readings between three and five pm the previous day and asked why they would be reading normal during that time, being that the internet and phone were both completely out during those hours, he said nothing. A couple of hours later I went with him to walk the lines back to the road, all the while he checked each line. He came up with nothing. He checked the signals for each channel with his meter and wrote everything down on his ticket as he left. Assuring me, once again, that this would be taken care of. He actually had his supervisor call me, I spoke with him for over an hour, going over everything that had occurred. He told me that they work in conjunction with Charter as a contractor and that the problem was that each time I called in, the witch of Charter mountain would enter the call as a new call and that each time a level one minion was sent out to see what was going on. The fix at this point was to have Charter trucks continually drive around the area and search for a dropped signal until they found the guilty home that was creating this “noise” that was bringing about all of our sorrow and woe. Charter would then isolate the home, fix the problem with filters, and we would all be happy once again. The obvious question flowed from me at this point, “If filters fix this problem, why not make them a standard piece of equipment upon installation, thus eliminating all of this frustration?” He remained silent for a bit then assured me it would be taken care of.

Indeed, for the next few weeks things seemed to settle down to the usual service, only now ‘on demand’ had a “stream” of pixilation that would fly across the screen every few seconds. The feed would not freeze, so we simply put up with it.

Then came the moment of clarity. I awoke one morning to discover that the phone and internet were out. I hopped on my cell phone to check email and our facebook page. I was met with a status update from someone that lives within two miles from here that stated, “Paying Charter $190 a month for cable, phone, and internet, then having to update my facebook status with my cell phone doesn’t make me a happy camper…”

By lunch time his status had been inundated with responses from people around the area experiencing the same problems. Slow internet connections, intermittent and spotty phone service, and fuzzy to dropped cable channels. I began to talk with people in the area and discovered a trend. I called Charter and told them what was going on. Again, I was met with promises of better service and assured everything would be ok. This is an ongoing, area wide issue…

Another call was put in to have a local service supervisor give me a call… they can’t do that. There is no way for them to send an email to a local service guy and simply have him call me without placing an actual service call…

The next day, at the allotted time, the service minion appeared. No one had called me, and again they had sent another minion out to assuage the unruly customer. I could tell from the smile on his face that he had no knowledge of the situation. I stood in the driveway and told him what was going on, he said that he was going to call his supervisor and see what he could do. I went inside and awaited his assurances of better quality service soon to come. In twenty minutes he came in and told me that his supervisor had pulled him off the call and that he had called an actual Charter service supervisor who informed him that another line crew had been called and was now in route to the area to find the problem. The line crew was under strict orders to contact me once the problem had been located and repaired. Two hours later we noticed the picture going in and out on the television, hmmmm… someone was doing something… A few minutes later a truck came down the driveway and I was met with a another minion who told me that he had found and replaced a “bad component” on a road a few miles from here that should correct the evil cloud of poor quality phone service.

“What about the issue with the cable?”

“I don’t know anything about a cable issue..”

Son of a… I then proceeded to tell this minion the entire story. He stopped me at several points to correct what I had been told, saying things like, “That’s not true” or “That wouldn’t effect your service..” I went inside and checked the phone and internet, they were both working, and… the internet was working faster than it had ever worked. Praise Zeus.. I had never seen internet at this speed, it was like having a new toy… he left me his cell number and told me to give him a call, but he didn’t assure me of better service to come. He openly told me that the phone and internet should work better now, but the what he did wouldn’t have any affect on the cable reception. So he said, “Call me when it happens again and I will head in this direction.”

The ‘on demand’ did not have any pixilation streams and everything seemed to be working correctly, so we enjoyed an uneventful evening of television and super fast internet connectivity.

I awoke this morning and came in the front room, turned on the television to get a weather report, and lo…. No cable service at all… I cussed under my breath and headed to the phone. What’s this? No internet and phone either. Excellent… I took out my cell phone, headed to the porch for a clear signal and looked up the minion’s cell number. I didn’t want to call him at five thirty, so I sent him a text. The cable came back on, with fuzzy lower channels and no upper digital channels, and the phone and internet kept coming and going. Imagine that. After a few hours of no word and intermittent service, I decided to call him. I dialed his number and got a message telling me that his number had been disconnected. Immediately I called the main number and worked my way through the propaganda to a live human being in Bangladesh, and simply said, “Supervisor” over and over until I got a supervisor. All I could say at this point, through clenched teeth, was, “I want to speak to a local Charter service supervisor right now.” Eventually they got the message and assured me an email would be sent to the appropriate people. An hour or so later the phone started ringing, I was outside and headed in but was too late to catch it. I checked the number and saw that it was one digit different from the minion’s number in my cell, so I called it right back, it was him. He told me that he was headed in this direction and would see what he came up with. A couple of hours later he called me to check and make sure that everything was working correctly, at that minute, it was.

He informed me that he thought he had found the problem… “An amplifier on a pole across the street had been replaced some time ago, probably when we called to report the last outage, but whoever replaced it had not put the required new style connectors on, he just forced the old connectors into the new amplifier, wallowing out the new amplifier and creating a spotty connection…” This is the same pole that I spoke of to each minion that came here, “Every time there has been a problem it’s always been associated with something on that pole across the road in my brother’s front yard if you want to go check it..” Nobody ever did…

I came inside, sat down at the computer and began typing out this blog post. A few paragraphs ago I was interrupted by the sound of a truck’s “reverse beeping” I went to the door to be met with the sight of a Charter van backing into place. I walked out to tell the new minion the story and have him allow me to sign a ticket and be on his way. He informed me that he was here as a follow up and that his boss was in route to the location, along with the boss of the contractors that had been haunting this place for the last few months. I told him about the amplifier and connectors as the people in charge pulled up next to him. I then related the entire story to the both of them. The Charter supervisor cut his eyes to the contractor supervisor several times as I spoke of what I had been told over the last several months.

That ended up being a two hour meeting in the driveway that ended on a decent note. Right this second everything seems to be working. The internet is working at a high speed, the phone is working and there doesn’t seem to be any loss of channels. This, of course, could all change at any second…. But now, I have the cell numbers of everyone involved and can call them all as soon as it happens again, you know, so this can all start over from the beginning…

And to think.. It only took seven months to actually get anything done…..

Brother Ray...

Many years, and a few lifetimes, ago going to church on Sundays was a mandatory thing. This was back in the days of Sunday dinners, screen doors, cookouts and lots of friends being around. My parents would wake us up on Sunday mornings with an announcement of the time and add the solemn, “So get ready…” for good measure. Back then you didn’t have a choice, church was just one of those things that you had to do.

We attended Macedonia Baptist Church here in Newnan. My memories of the place are fond, softball games, going out to eat, listening to the sermons, writing notes back and forth with the people my age when we weren’t listening… there were a few preachers there while I attended, I liked them all, each one for a different reason… plus they were all pretty good speakers. That was always my favorite part of going, listening to the pastor preach. The one continuity of the pastors I had experience with there was their close adherence to time. Most of them would check their watches constantly while speaking. You could tell it was getting close to time for the service to be over when the guy in the choir behind the pulpit would start nodding off to sleep. They were a group of fairly soft spoken men, loud enough to hear, but they didn’t get carried away or shout when they preached... Most of the congregation seemed to like that.

There was a time when the church found itself without a pastor. There was a committee formed, there is always some sort of committee formed at church, that was to travel around and seek out a new preacher. One Sunday my father had announced on the way to church that there was going to be a new pastor speaking that day. Several different people had been through in the past few Sundays and the hierarchy of the church had shot them down for first one reason or another… church politics, at times, can be more cutthroat than the congressional halls in Washington…

The routine played itself out as it had for the past few people that had been through. The question floating around the Sunday school classes was, “Do they have any kids?” Turns out they did… he had a son that was our age. My brother knew him from a retreat he had gone to on the Georgia coast…

When eleven o’clock rolled around we sat down in the sanctuary and waited for the new guy to show himself. He walked out of the side door and made his way to the pulpit. The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing boots… I liked that. He was of medium height, an average looking man… who had the same squint eyed stare that my own father had. I knew then that he was one of those people that could bring a room to order without really saying anything. A few notes were passed around prior to the sermon, but I was waiting to hear what he had to say. I remember him walking up to the pulpit, you could've heard a pin drop, the floor creaked a bit as he took his place and laid the bible he carried down before him. He took his watch off and set it next to his bible, then looked up at the congregation. I couldn’t tell you what the first words he said were, but I can still remember the way everyone jumped when he started speaking. His voiced boomed through the room and everyone was suddenly awake, I couldn’t help but giggle when I noted the sleeping guy in the choir almost jump out of his skin…What followed as a sermon that I listened to from the first word to the last. This man was a great speaker. That was my introduction to Ray Freeman…

Ray had come out of south Georgia, preaching in churches for many years. I think the reason I took to the man was the way he reminded me of my own father. He had that John Wayne sort of way of talking to people that made you just listen to him. He was interested in the same sort of things that I grew up with so the feel was that a long lost uncle had come back to town. His wife, Miss Faye, is one of the best cooks I’ve ever encountered, there were many a Sunday afternoon that we would raid their refrigerator for the best meal you could imagine, cold fried chicken. I would love to do that one more time….

My grandparents were very fond of Ray. He would visit with them often and whenever I went down there they always talked about him. My own fondness for him over the years grew out of watching him as a pastor, more so than a preacher. He met with and knew everybody in the community. He has an easy spirituality about him, he doesn’t try to beat you over the head with a bible. As my grandmother would often say, “Brother Ray is a good man, you can just tell that he is, he would sit and talk with us for hours, you would never know he was a preacher, just a good man that loves God…” They looked forward to seeing him whenever he visited.

He met with everybody and took an interest in whatever it was they were doing. He attended all of the cookouts and barbecues, his sense of humor would make me chuckle, getting in that one “unpastor like” line as he walked away that always made you spray the sweet tea out of your mouth… I liked the way that he was a natural community leader. The man is a master of the soft sell, he didn’t have to tell you about God, or preach to you about your wrongdoings, he could just look at you and you knew you were about to get it if you didn’t straighten up. A classic example of ministering by lifestyle… If there was a sickness in the family, or something awful had happened, he was there. You could count on him at all times. He did the wedding ceremony when I was married, and I’m glad he was able to do it.

I had stopped going to church and hadn’t seen him in years when my father passed away. The awful night when my father’s “viewing” took place at the local funeral home is one that was a blur of colors and sound. There are only a very few moments that I can recall in total. Different people had an affect on me as I was shaking hands with them, some stronger than others. One of those moments happened when I was standing by the window looking out across the front lawn of the building when I turned around and saw Ray. For some reason that was the moment that the realization of the loss I felt hit me. He walked over and hugged me, and for one brief second in time it was almost as if my dad was there and I was about to sit down and listen to them talk about deer hunting while we ate some of my grandfathers barbecue… and for that inner peace Ray brought me at that moment, I will forever be thankful…

Ray’s son, David, contacted me a while back and asked if I would make a walking stick for his father. Ray’s getting on in years now, and is finding it more difficult to get around, yet I imagine he could still kick my butt if he took a notion. I went out and found a stout piece of sweet gum from by my dad’s shop and cut it down. David asked if I could put a quail on it for him, in light of his love of bird hunting. I searched the internet for a picture of a quail, but decided to just freehand an image on it and burn it in for him. For the times he inspired and comforted me over the years, I felt he deserved a creation that came directly from me.

I want to tell Ray, thank you for showing me what a true man of God is….

Skull, Book, and Candle...

I had a piece of basswood in stock and decided to create my own version of a Halloween decoration...

When working on a labor intensive carving like this your mind tends to wander as you work the piece with your hands. Sometimes I think about things that have happened to me as I go along.... This one was no different.

I had thought about going to see a fortune teller that was located on the outskirts of town for some time. I was in high school and thought more about things like that then, than I do these days. I would drive by the place, look at the sign and think to myself, "One day I'm going to pull in there and just do it..." I was curious as to how those things worked. I knew it would be a waste of money, but like I said, those days were different..

During my senior year I decided to bite the bullet and just do it, so I called the number and made an appointment. The place looked pretty much as I had envisioned... Red shawls tossed over lamps, heavy incense floating around, and a creepy looking little woman with a harsh accent waiting for me in the room that was set aside for her business.

She welcomed me in and beckoned me in to have a seat. I didn't want to give her any information about myself that she could work off of, so I kept fairly quiet. The only question she asked was, "What is it that you seek?"

"I want to know about my future..."

She had me cut the taro cards and began laying them out in front of me without saying a word. She began to tell me about myself, but what she was saying was pretty standard for an angst ridden teenager so I listened half heartedly.

The entire scenario was creepy, which is the standard for that business, so it took some control to keep my mind clear while being receptive to what she was saying. The argument "this is twenty five bucks I'll never see again" was running through my mind more so than the words she was spitting in my direction. All in all, what she told me wasn't interesting or exciting, I only found two things she said noteworthy... One, as she was reading my palm she told me that I wouldn't live past thirty six... Being that I'm eight years overdue to drop dead, I don't think that tidbit was overly accurate.. and two, she told me that I had already had a small glimpse of my future.

I pondered those two statements for quite a while. Being seventeen I wasn't too worried about kicking off at thirty six, so my mind was occupied by the "glimpse of my future" quote.. I wrestled that one for quite a while, digging around, looking to see what that may entail... Periodically it would come back to haunt me over the years to come, until one day...

I had been married for about a year when my mother called me and told me that she had a few things of mine that I needed to come get. The next day I stopped by there and picked up a stack of miscellaneous papers, most from my school years. I visited with them for a while then made my way home. I laid the stack on the dinning room table and went on through the kitchen... Later that night I found myself sitting at the table in front of the huge window that looked out across our backyard going through the papers. That was a trip down memory lane to be sure, old school tests, short stories, my high school diploma, and a few paintings I had done for some early art classes. I picked up the largest painting and looked at it fondly, thinking of my teacher, Beverly Grunwald, looking over my shoulder telling me what I was doing wrong as I painted. I sat there for some time holding the picture up as my eyes traveled across it, thinking of my tenth grade year. When I Lowered the painting I stared straight ahead in recognition and wonder...

All those years ago, I had painted the exact scene out of my dinning room window.... There was a tree on the right with a low hanging branch that entered into the frame in the middle, and a creek running across the background. The colors, the leaves, the blossoms on the trees... everything was identical.. I looked from the painting lying on the tale to the window, I called my wife in and held the painting up to the window to prove to myself that I wasn't going crazy... She looked at it and then at the window and went immediately back into the front room shaking her head...

As I was laying in bed that night my thoughts drifted back to that old woman's words many years before.. I decided that common sense and coincidence had no bearing in this case.. I would hold onto a tiny bit of magic in the corner of my mind as I grew older and simply believe that she was right... well except for the being dead at thirty six thing..

I put the feel of that old house, laden with sickly sweet incense, dimly lit with a red glow, and the image of that wizened old woman standing in the door into this piece I made... I can almost hear her when I look at this, "Come in... come in my child..."

Basswood, sells for $160, if you're interested email me at crickhollowcarving@gmail.com

Jesus on the cross in Newnan... revisited.

I have experienced some strange things since I looked on my facebook page a couple of weeks ago and saw that note… “You can see Jesus on here plain as day…”

The things that have happened have been nothing new, just new to me. This hasn’t really been a learning experience, I think I have come out of this with more of an affirmation of my views toward humanity. The overall feeling I’m left with at this point is one of exhaustion and intolerance. I expect, for some strange reason, for people to think about these things the same way I do… That is my flaw, expecting something from people when it comes to behavior. When going into something like this you know that there will be detractors. I set myself up for this, I went into it knowing it, prepared my psyche for it.

The day after I made this cross I saw the face and hands on it for the first time. When I went back and looked at the picture I had taken and placed on facebook I could plainly see the face on it. I was amazed that I handled it that much and had not seen it. My reaction to it was one of confusion, surprise, a touch of fear, and a sense of calm. I thought it was interesting and couldn’t wrap my mind around the probability of how a face and the right and left hand could just happen to fall into correct position like that.

The reactions I have witnessed have run the gamut from “I don’t see it” to nearly falling down and yelling about their undying love for Jesus and God… When someone claims that they can’t see it I show it to them, I haven’t yet encountered anyone that hasn’t been able to see it once its been pointed out. I have spoken with several ministers form various faiths about the piece and they all have the same reaction, they see it, they say it’s a sign from God about his love and that it’s a blessing.

The type of individual that I wasn’t prepared for… Well, they have left me with a further disdain for people in general. These are the people who see it, speak about it being a miracle or strange, or interesting when face to face with you, then detract from it when they aren‘t near you, acting as if I’m a backwoods rube who designed and made this thing for my own gain. I’ve been interviewed by people who have been a huge cheerleader for the cross while speaking to me in person and then taken the point of view of a skeptic when finishing their piece for print or airtime. By the same token, the people who have attacked me outright as some sort of heretic who is only seeking gain, have shown themselves to be a special kind of leach… I put them all in the same boat, disingenuous… I’ve had people who have been very upfront about their dislike for me and what I’m doing, loudly voicing their opinion all over the internet and to anyone who would listen, quietly send me a note asking if they could be tagged in the photograph or could use it to promote something they themselves are working on.

Religious intolerance is a new one as well... People who have claimed, time and again, to be open minded about their beliefs, not "limiting" themselves to the standard Christian mantra when it comes to spiritually. The very people who bark the loudest about hating the closed minded way people are that believe in a Christian God, have been the most closed minded about this piece. My take on this is, "What? It's a piece of wood with a few images on it, why would you go immediately to thinking that people believe that God exists in this?" Yet again I am treated to the nonconformist, peace loving people that accept everyone... as long as you agree with them and their ideology...

I’ve taken the laughter, the snickers, the negative comments, and derision along with the good. Some people have been inspired by the piece, finding peace and calm when handling it or praying with it. Some have sought it out for these purposes. People have cried while holding it or believed themselves to be blessed by it somehow. I had a woman come to see it who thought it may make her feel closer to her husband that had recently passed away…

Whatever the reason, for whatever the purpose, good or bad, this cross seems to have quite the affect on people. I just wish people could see it the way I do… Something that is interesting.

Jesus appears on a cross...

A little over a year ago I went out on the Kawasaki mule to look for wood for walking sticks. I spent a few hours traveling around the woods, looking, walking, pondering and searching for the right pieces to choose. The last stop on my trip was near my fathers shop, just down the dirt road from where he worked on his Native American crafts before he passed away in 2008. There is a good stand of young poplar trees growing beside the road, so I began walking through them and picking out the ones I thought would make good hiking and walking sticks. When I arrived home I had a good “mule load” of pieces to work with.

Since then I have pulled them out one at a time and made everything from walking sticks to Santa ornaments from them. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that I only had one piece of that wood left. I decided to make a walking stick…

I took the piece down and measured it out for the walking stick. I cut the handle and the length for the body, I then notched the end of the body and cut a hole in the handle, covered them with glue and put them together. The next stage is to put a screw though the two pieces to ensure they hold together, the final part is wrapping a leather strap around the handle for a decorative effect, then I began work on the finish…

When the walking stick was completed I had a couple of pieces, around a foot long, left over. We do a few local shows, and with labor day weekend coming up I started thinking about what I have in inventory, and what I may need for the show I would be in. I had made a few crosses before, varying in length from a foot or so down to five or six inches. They have always sold well, so I decided to use the left over pieces and make a couple of crosses.

I took out the first piece, it was shorter than the other, and started to carve the ends down. Normally I debark the entire piece and cut the wood square, then notch the cross length and the body to fit together. This time I felt that if I left the bark on it would look pretty good, so I gave it a test run. I worked with the two pieces, carving the ends down, sanding them a bit to remove the rough edges, fitting them together, taking them apart, flipping the cross piece around first one way then another, carving a bit here and there to secure a good snug fit. When I was happy with the result I put on the glue to hold them together, then wrapped a piece of leather around it for decoration, then put a hook on the back and ran a small piece of leather through it so it could hang on a wall. I looked at it, tested the fit of the pieces and hold of the glue, tugged the leather to make sure it was secure and was pleased with the outcome. As with most things I make I stepped out on the front porch and snapped a picture of the cross with my cell phone and posted it on facebook. I then sat it aside and grabbed the next piece and repeated the process…

The two crosses sat for the rest of the evening on the table next to me. Later that night I thought of my nephew, Michael Bloodworth… he had recently been baptized and joined Cedar Creek Baptist Church here in Newnan, he had commented before about liking my work, so I decided, in light of his new found faith, that I would give him one of the crosses as a gift.

I decided to give him the smaller of the two crosses and tossed it in the Kawasaki mule as I headed out to meet my son’s school bus at the end of the driveway. Once he was on board the mule we headed next door to visit my mother for a bit and show her the cross. She was engaged in an afternoon card game with a few other southern ladies, they passed the cross around and commented about it, then we headed out to my nephew’s house to give it to him. Michael’s grandfather Jack was there and told us that he was out for a bit with my niece Brittany and their son Bennett, so I left the cross with him to pass along to Michael when he got home.

Later that evening I received a notification on my cell phone that Brittany had posted on my facebook wall, so I took a look and saw that she had written a thank you to me for the cross and added the line, “You know the face of Jesus is on this cross? You can see it plain as day…” so I responded that I wanted to see it.. We headed over there after dinner to take a look at it, and sure enough, there it was. A likeness of the face of Jesus, very similar to the face on the Shroud of Turin.

I couldn’t believe that I had taken the time to make the cross, took a picture of it and posted it on facebook, had it next to me all evening, then carried it around all afternoon, and had never noticed it. I even went back to my facebook page and looked at the picture, and could see it there… As we were looking at the piece Michael noticed something strange on the cross length where the hands would be nailed into place… In the spot where his left hand would be you could clearly see, well… a left hand with its thumb sticking straight up, you could easily count all five fingers, and a line, as if it were a lash or rope across his forearm. I looked at it and saw it immediately, then I looked at the other end where his right hand would be, and there it was, his right hand… Again, with the thumb extended upward… a literal cold chill ran down my spine.

We began looking over the piece and found it a strange thing to behold. I took it back down to my mother’s house to show her. I walked in and said, “Put your glasses on I want to show you something..” I handed the cross to her and asked, “Do you see anything odd about this?” she stared at it for a few moments, then said, “I see a face on it…” I pointed out the hands to her and she saw them as well. That was an odd moment.

Since that evening, quite a few odd moments have taken place. Several people that have handled the cross have reported to me that they have been left with a strange sense of calmness once they’ve held it. One of my long time friends handled the piece and prayed with it, later that evening he said to me, “You know me, and you know I wouldn’t just say this, but since I prayed with that cross, my left hand has been tingling…”

Several pastors have looked at the cross, a catholic priest has blessed it, we were featured in an article on the front page of our local paper about it, and we have received calls and emails from people all over the region wanting to see it.

I like to think of it this way… that for a brief moment in time, in some strange, cosmic way, my father sent me a note, I can hear him as plain as day… “Boy… I’m proud of you and the work you’re doing, now stop ogling this piece of wood and get busy…”