BROTHER WEBB

BROTHER WEBB [J D Webb, Sr., father of Orlow]      

Sometime last month you had a birthday;

The exact date, I’m sorry, I forgot.

You turned eighty-five, 85, I say.

Eighty-five years Brother, is a lot.

2

Four score and five is almost enough

To be antique. (Don’t be offended,

Antiques, you know, I love in the rough,

So stick with me till I’m ended.)

3

You’ve lived to see the horse-less carriage,

Turn from touring car to streamline.

And conversely the steam, steel-horse rage,

Once strong, you’ve seen fully decline.

4

The airplane you saw at its outset,

Not dreaming that soon, oh, so soon,

The bi-plane would give way to the jet,

And you’d live to see “men on the moon.”

5

As I’d mention a “great,” you’d known him:

Rees, Fleming, Culp, Uncle Bud, and Ruth,

Anderson, Stalker, and Wireman.

You’ve been privileged to hear preach the truth.

6

You have lived and known such a spectrum,

Of the past, and ones who have gone on.

You’re the one for me, who connects them,

A living, Godly historian.

7

So I’m glad to have had you Brother,

As pastor, advisor, and friend.

With wishes for many another,

These (late) birthday greetings I send.

– eab, Feb. ‘75

Read Full Post »

J. D. WEBB, SR.

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.

Read Full Post »