It’s one thing to set biographical note,
Recounting birth and marriage, and death,
Merely stating the facts as they go,
From first to the latest breath.
It’s another entirely to contemplate,
Selectively choose, accurately state,
The feelings, the memories,
The anchoring points, old man-to-young
Reflecting, grateful for impressions,
Left, largely unsung.
He was old when we met, then I was ten,
(When anyone out of high school was old).
I was a Sunday School lad;
He was the Shepherd of the fold.
I could hear his bass from the platform ring
When he joined the congregation to sing.
And remember the morning
Obadiah was his Holy text,
Not expecting my nephew
Then two, to loudly say it next.
John Denver Webb was born when
Benjamin Harrison sat in the oval room.
He and Ike were a part
Of the eighteen-ninety “baby boom.”
While, Eisenhower’s “fifty-two” November,
Was the first campaign I remember.
Bro. Webb became, as I grew older,
(What “kid” likes old stuff?)
My cementing-link with history:
Great, and graceful, and gruff.
Why, he remembered boys going to war –
Teddy Roosevelt’s rough-riding boys!
His nineteen fourteen Cadillac, when two years old
Brought him great joys.
The open bi-plane introduced him to the sky,
He even saw Orville Wright fly,
And he ran the telegraph,
Once the life-line of the trains,
Before God saved and called him
Under old-time conviction pains.
His life covered that great early span of
Shelhamer and Rees, Culp, Fleming, and Ruth
He knew Charles Stalker; the man God saved,
And brightened his mind to truth.
And he shared a breakfast “spud,”
With that famous, Nazarene cowboy, Uncle Bud.
—
He slipped away on an October morn,
Away to heaven’s portal.
He changed old fleshly clothes, outworn,
Changed them for the immortal. [1]
– eab, 10/86
[1] Brother Webb was my pastor c. 1953-1957 and later while he pastored in Clinton, TN, he prayed at our 1961 wedding.
[1] Brother Webb was my pastor c. 1953-1957 and later while he pastored in Clinton, TN, he prayed at our 1961 wedding.
Separate-Holy 