LAUGH 'N LEARN

An Encouragement Ministry of Verde Valley Christian Church
Of Cottonwood Arizona
http://www.vvchristianchurch.net/

Issue # 282,    April 21,  2008

LAUGH

New Passport Photo

An excerpt from "People Like Us--Coach and Coach"

Advocate

By Dave and Neta Jackson

James Saunders sized up the tall, good-looking black man walking briskly up Wacker Drive and decided he looked like a good mark.  “Got a dollar or two, mister?” he called out.  Unlike some of the other panhandlers in downtown Chicago, James knew he wouldn’t get snide remarks like “Get a job, buddy.”  Not many people could pass by the wheelchair of a double amputee without throwing something into his hat.

“Sure,” said the tall man, digging out a five-dollar bill.  “Say, losing your legs must be tough.  What happened?”

James was surprised. Most people just dropped in the money and hurried off.  Not many stayed to talk.

It was the first of many talks on the corner of Wacker Drive and Monroe.  James told his new friend, who introduced himself as Ricky Byrdsong, that he’d been stabbed in the back at age twenty-five, which paralyzed him from the waist down.  An infection in his bones took off first one leg, then the other.  For the past twenty-five years he’d been in and out of hospitals, had married three times, and held piecemeal jobs. 

Ricky Byrdsong told James he used to be the head basketball coach at Northwestern University “…until I got sacked a year ago.”  He laughed ruefully.  “Nobody would hire a coach with a  losing streak.  Didn’t think about panhandling, though…You make good money on this corner?”

James laughed in spite of himself.  The tall man was obviously well-off now.  Turned out that he worked across the street at the Aon Corporation—the second largest insurance broker in the world—as vice president of community affairs.

“don’t you miss coaching?” he asked his new friend.

Byrdsong grinned broadly from ear to ear.  “James, I’ve got the greatest job in the world.  They’re actually paying me to go to schools, talk to kinds about what’s important in life, and run basketball camps for inner-city kinds in the summer.  Not just basketball either.  Kids come to camp to play basketball half the time. ; the other half we teach them computer skills, take them to work, try to give them a vision for something besides basketball.”  His eyes had fire in them.  “I want them to know there are other options besides becoming an NBA superstar like Michael Jordan—which isn’t very likely—or hustling drugs.  I want kids to know there’s dignity in education and hard work.”

Dignity.  Pride.  That was hard to come by panhandling on a street corner, evern though it put food in his stomach and helped pay the rent.  There was something about Ricky Byrdsong that inspired James Saunders, made him want to “stand tall,” get off this corner, and do something with his life. 

“Ricky, do you think you could help me get a job?” he asked one winter morning as the two men exchanged their usual hellos.

Byrdsong scratched the back of his head.  “Can’t promise anything, Mames.  But I’ll see what I can do.”

Within a couple of days Ricky ushered James’s wheelchair into the Human Resources office of the Aon Corporation.  There was a job in the mailroom.  Did James think he could handle it?

James could hardly believe his ears.  “I’ll be the best employee you’ve got!” he said.  “I’m dependable.  I’ll show up here on time, even stay overtime if I need to.”

“He’s got that right!” Ricky Byrdsong chimed in.  “If this guy can show up on a street corner in the Windy City every morning, rain or shine, summer or winter, without fail, you know he’s going to show up for an inside job!”

Their laughter bounced off the walls.  And James was true to his word.  He didn’t make as much money as he sometimes did panhandling, but Ricky Byrdsong had given him something far batter: friendship and dignity.

An advocate speaks up on behalf of someone else
who is often overlooked in society:

Psalms 82:3 (NIV) Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  

Dave and Neta Jackson, Hero Tales, Volumn IV, p.  11-13

For the Biography of Ricky Byrdsong read:   “No Random Act—Behind the Murder of Ricky Byrdsong” by Dave and Neta Jackson

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