Yesterday BigB & MB were about to leave for FPC. BigB comes @ me with an old cigar box & piece of paper & tells me it's a "Time Capsule" project due tomorrow. He hands me the paper, detailing the assignment. Just a brief rundown : 6 categories (your family, high school, town, past, present, & future), at least 6 personal items (1 for each category), a letter (for who discovers the capsule) explain each item, why you put it in the capsule, it's meaning to you; tell about your family, town, & high school experience, & what they mean to you; future dreams or plans, you get the point... Of course, I blew up @ him for waiting til Sun to start a project that was due Monday. Anyway, he had already put 6 items in the capsule. Me : "What capsule? That old, raggedy cigar box?" BigB : "I found it @ Bebe's. It will be cool". (Bebe's my late grandmother & very dear to my heart). Me : "Whatever, it's your project". All he had left was the letter. He asked if I would help him when he got back from church later. I quickly got over my anger (I love this boy & this kind of project). I peeked in the box & saw our family Christmas card (he asked me for the other day & I thought he was joking) & few other items he had in there. I was surprised & pleased to see he had paid attention to the instructions & put some thought into it. 4 hours later he & MB come dragging in an hour late (hard to get pissed @ your kids for spending too much time @ church). I told him he would have to write the letter by himself, leave it up on the laptop, & I would proof read & print it in the morning (b/c @ this point I'm now delirious from staying up for 30 hours straight after working all night Sat). I gave him a few ideas for the letter & left him to it. The next morning I sat down to proof read it (which is a joke, b/c he can use spell check & I don't have a clue about grammar or where to put commas & crap). I should have sat down with a box of Kleenex instead of a cup of coffee. I had no clue. ManChild #1 was about to take a HUGE piece of my heart to CHS in a raggedy old cigar box.
January 30, 2012
Dear older, very handsome, distinguished, & established self,
I am writing you this letter to remind you of how great you had it growing up (actually it's part of an assignment for class). I have strategically placed it in a sealed time capsule (old cigar box I found in my great grandmother, Bebe's garage). I have enclosed some significant personal items and will explain what they mean to me. The time capsule is to remain sealed until I am grown with children or grandchildren of my own. So, when my kids or grand kids ask what it was like when I was growing up, I can show them. In the event that my life is tragically cut short, my little brothers John Paul and Jack can open the time capsule with their kids and show them how awesome their oldest brother "Big Bennett" was.
I am a 16 year old sophomore at CHS. They call me "Big Bennett". I don't talk much. Cause, the size says it all. High school so far has been awesome! (except for the fact that I hate school). Momma always says: "hate is a strong word". So, I'll just say I strongly dislike school. (Because, I know she's gonna proof read this). By the way, did I mention my momma is the world's best momma? She's all into family traditions and making homemade stuff (scarves, hats, cupcakes, big country boys like me, you name it). She's always taking pictures of me and my two younger brothers no matter what we are doing. She gets all mad and starts screaming when we won't cooperate. My brothers and I could be covered in dirt and blood because, we just barely escaped a zombie attack (like in the best TV series of this era "The Walking Dead") and my momma (still snapping pictures despite the zombie apocalypse) would be yelling: "Now, put your arms around your brother & please just smile and act like you like each other! This would make the perfect Christmas card picture!" Every Christmas she makes a family Christmas card, puts a picture of our family on it, and snail mails them to all of our family and friends. This past Christmas she was freaking out. It was two weeks before Christmas and she said she didn't have a family photo of all of us (that was Christmas card worthy). She ended up making a really cool card, anyway. Her favorite movie is The Sound of Music and she loves that song in it about "a few of my favorite things". She put pictures of my brothers and I doing our favorite things and she made up her own lyrics about some of our family's favorite things. It's a really cool poem about my family and all of our favorite things. She had some cards left over from Christmas. I told her to address one to me and that I was sending it to my future self. Then she started quoting some old 80's movie. She said something about Marty Mcfly and needing 1.21 gigawatts to travel back to the future. That's another thing about my family. We love all kinds of movies and movie quotes. We try to impress each other by using movie quotes every chance we get. Then she said "never mind, you won't have a future if your grades don't get better". So, I hope I get a good grade on this project. I put the family Christmas card in the time capsule with one of the stamps she bought at the post office. I don't know if stamps and post office's will still be around when I have kids. Thought it would be cool to show them.
Since, my family and I are big on movies, I also included a movie ticket stub from the last movie we went to see: The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1. It's currently one of the most popular movies out right now. I'm not a die hard Twilight fan. But, if i had to pick a team, I would probably pick team Jacob. I like to root for the underdog (he technically is part dog) and I can relate to him. He lives out in the country, likes to go around without a shirt on, has a cool suntan, a leather jacket, a motorcycle, and big muscles. Well, that's enough about me. Back to the movie, every living female on the planet says this movie is epic. I'm not sure that I agree. But, my momma didn't want to go see it by herself. So, we went with her. Plus, my daddy said the theater would be be packed full of girls (and he was right).
Also, I thought it would be cool to put my first cell phone in the time capsule. I got it a few years ago when I was in 7th grade. It's like a dinosaur compared to the one I have now. I charged it before I put it in here. I hope it will still power on. It still has some old pictures and favorite music from my past on it. I had my all time favorite song "Red Dirt Road" by Brooks and Dunn set as my first ring back tone. It's this guy singing about growing up in the country and what it means to him now. Part of high school is trying to fit in. I have a lot of friends. I'm on the football team and I like to go and hang out with the youth group at church in town. But, that's not where I fit in. Everybody says I'm just like my daddy and he's just a good ole country boy. When we are leaving the city or our town he always says "Come on son. Let's get outta here and get back to God's country". That's what he calls our home. The best part of growing up in the country for me is going down the same dirt roads and playing in the same river bottoms as my daddy and his daddy did. Lucky for country boys like me, Jason Aldean's "Dirt Road Anthem" was a top ten hit last year, making growing up in the country or a small town sound cool. That old phone may no longer be cool. But, I sure have some cool memories from my past on it.
Another cool thing about growing up in the country and my hometown, is Friday night lights. Kenny Chesney had a recent hit songs about it: "The Boys of Fall". The lyrics to that song describe my hometown perfectly and what it's like for boys like me to be on the high school football team. My dad saved the sports section from our town paper, The Covington Leader, and I put it in the capsule. You might be laughing and thinking that's small town news. Some may say it is stupid for the whole town to make such a big deal about a high school football game and that when you grow up it won't matter. But, in my town, it's not just about the local high school game. It's about a whole town coming together and not just on Friday nights. Big cities have lots of different high schools. Covington just has one. So, it's really a big awesome deal in my hometown. Our town will basically close down, block off the streets, and have parades all throughout the year. Including, the high school homecoming parade. It doesn't matter if you have a kid on the team or if you are a local cop, fireman, banker, or farmer. The whole town comes out and gets into it and when some other local event is going on around our town throughout the year, the whole football team will show up and support it. It is really cool to go eat at some of the restaurants around town, too. At my hometown Pizza Hut, the walls are decorated with pictures and newspaper clippings from some of the most memorable CHS sports games and athletes. I know I will probably never be a famous athlete. But, I'm pretty sure that some my hometown's front page newspaper headlines from our last football season will be on the walls of the locker rooms, restaurants, and businesses throughout my hometown for years to come. I will be proud to say that I grew up in this town and was part of that.
If you smelled something strange when you open the time capsule, then you are smelling the sweet scent of Charger sweat. I play tackle and I put one of my lineman gloves in here. Because, so far the best thing about high school for me has been football. We finished the 2011 season 11-3 and made it to the 4A state semi-finals. I hope I will get to be a starter next year and that we make it all the way to the state championship. It would be so cool to put a state championship ring in here.
Another reason I will never forget 2011, is all of the floods and tornadoes. In the spring of 2011, parts of Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, and Oklahoma were destroyed by flooding and tornadoes. Everybody in Tipton county will remember the floods we had. But, as for me, my brother John Paul, and the rest of the FPC youth, we will never forget the destruction we saw left behind by the tornadoes in Alabama. We went to Alabama last summer on our annual church youth group mission trip and helped the tornado victims. Words can't describe what we saw. Whole towns were wiped out by these tornadoes. Every year our church youth group goes on a mission trip. I look forward to it every year and it is always one of the highlights of my summer. This trip was my younger brother John Paul's first mission trip and it was really cool us both being there working together. One of the traditions of church's mission trips is a sack of letters that we each give to each other. I put the sack of letters from my first mission trip in the capsule. These letters remind me of my church family, places we went together, the people we met, and how we changed their lives with the good work we did. When I go back and read these letters, I think about how even though I was just a kid, I really did help change somebody's life by doing God's work. It gets me to thinking about what else God has in store for me. I plan to keep going on the youth mission trips with my church family every summer and when I get older maybe I can travel the world, go to different countries, and do more mission work. I have not decided what else I will do after high school, yet. I know the bible says "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV). Man, do I love Jesus! They teach us at church to talk to God, and if you ask him something he will send you an answer in a message. Sometimes when something good or bad happens my momma will say "I think Jesus is trying to tell us something." There is this joke my little brother Jack loves to tell. You may have heard it. It goes like this:
A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says "get in, get in!" The religious man replies, " No,I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle."
Later the water is up to his waist and another boat comes by and the guy tells him to get in again. He responds that he has faith in god and god will give him a miracle. With the water at about chest high, another boat comes to rescue him, but he turns down the offer again cause "God will grant him a miracle."
With the water at chin high, a helicopter throws down a ladder and they tell him to get in, mumbling with the water in his mouth, he again turns down the request for help for the faith of God. He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Peter, I thought God would grand me a miracle and I have been let down." St. Peter chuckles and responds, "I don't know what you're complaining about, we sent you three boats and a helicopter."
Our God is awesome and I do ask him about my future. He just hasn't answered me yet. When he does, I hope I'm not like that man and too stupid to get the message. One Christmas my parents gave my brothers and I each a dog tag necklace with our names engraved on one side of them. On the other side they had this Bible verse engraved on it: "But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31. My momma said she picked that verse because, it makes her feel better when she is tired of her job or worried about the future. When I dream about my future and what plans God has for me, I think about that bible verse on that necklace. So, it is the last thing I put in the time capsule.
In the mean time, while waiting for my message from Jesus, I plan to follow the wise philosophy of a popular country music singer of my era. Just like Jason Aldean sings about, my brothers and I are gonna "lay a lot of memories down like tattoos on this town".
#74 Big Bennett
I cleaned up my mess. Since, I laughed a lot, peed a little, cried a lot, & then I had snot. I didn't dare change a thing & except put a comma or add some quotation marks here & there. When he woke up he could tell I'd been crying & was concerned. I had to get up on my step stool so I could look him in the eye & tell him : "You is smart, you is kind, you is important, & you is blowing my mind"
I watched him as he put that old cigar box in his truck & left for school. I wanted to yell @ him so bad, to please be careful with that old cigar box & don't loose it. Cause, in that raggedy old box, somewhere in between his stinky football glove, a cheap necklace, & a newspaper clipping is a big part of my heart that will always belong to him.
January 30, 2012
Dear older, very handsome, distinguished, & established self,
I am writing you this letter to remind you of how great you had it growing up (actually it's part of an assignment for class). I have strategically placed it in a sealed time capsule (old cigar box I found in my great grandmother, Bebe's garage). I have enclosed some significant personal items and will explain what they mean to me. The time capsule is to remain sealed until I am grown with children or grandchildren of my own. So, when my kids or grand kids ask what it was like when I was growing up, I can show them. In the event that my life is tragically cut short, my little brothers John Paul and Jack can open the time capsule with their kids and show them how awesome their oldest brother "Big Bennett" was.
I am a 16 year old sophomore at CHS. They call me "Big Bennett". I don't talk much. Cause, the size says it all. High school so far has been awesome! (except for the fact that I hate school). Momma always says: "hate is a strong word". So, I'll just say I strongly dislike school. (Because, I know she's gonna proof read this). By the way, did I mention my momma is the world's best momma? She's all into family traditions and making homemade stuff (scarves, hats, cupcakes, big country boys like me, you name it). She's always taking pictures of me and my two younger brothers no matter what we are doing. She gets all mad and starts screaming when we won't cooperate. My brothers and I could be covered in dirt and blood because, we just barely escaped a zombie attack (like in the best TV series of this era "The Walking Dead") and my momma (still snapping pictures despite the zombie apocalypse) would be yelling: "Now, put your arms around your brother & please just smile and act like you like each other! This would make the perfect Christmas card picture!" Every Christmas she makes a family Christmas card, puts a picture of our family on it, and snail mails them to all of our family and friends. This past Christmas she was freaking out. It was two weeks before Christmas and she said she didn't have a family photo of all of us (that was Christmas card worthy). She ended up making a really cool card, anyway. Her favorite movie is The Sound of Music and she loves that song in it about "a few of my favorite things". She put pictures of my brothers and I doing our favorite things and she made up her own lyrics about some of our family's favorite things. It's a really cool poem about my family and all of our favorite things. She had some cards left over from Christmas. I told her to address one to me and that I was sending it to my future self. Then she started quoting some old 80's movie. She said something about Marty Mcfly and needing 1.21 gigawatts to travel back to the future. That's another thing about my family. We love all kinds of movies and movie quotes. We try to impress each other by using movie quotes every chance we get. Then she said "never mind, you won't have a future if your grades don't get better". So, I hope I get a good grade on this project. I put the family Christmas card in the time capsule with one of the stamps she bought at the post office. I don't know if stamps and post office's will still be around when I have kids. Thought it would be cool to show them.
Since, my family and I are big on movies, I also included a movie ticket stub from the last movie we went to see: The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1. It's currently one of the most popular movies out right now. I'm not a die hard Twilight fan. But, if i had to pick a team, I would probably pick team Jacob. I like to root for the underdog (he technically is part dog) and I can relate to him. He lives out in the country, likes to go around without a shirt on, has a cool suntan, a leather jacket, a motorcycle, and big muscles. Well, that's enough about me. Back to the movie, every living female on the planet says this movie is epic. I'm not sure that I agree. But, my momma didn't want to go see it by herself. So, we went with her. Plus, my daddy said the theater would be be packed full of girls (and he was right).
Also, I thought it would be cool to put my first cell phone in the time capsule. I got it a few years ago when I was in 7th grade. It's like a dinosaur compared to the one I have now. I charged it before I put it in here. I hope it will still power on. It still has some old pictures and favorite music from my past on it. I had my all time favorite song "Red Dirt Road" by Brooks and Dunn set as my first ring back tone. It's this guy singing about growing up in the country and what it means to him now. Part of high school is trying to fit in. I have a lot of friends. I'm on the football team and I like to go and hang out with the youth group at church in town. But, that's not where I fit in. Everybody says I'm just like my daddy and he's just a good ole country boy. When we are leaving the city or our town he always says "Come on son. Let's get outta here and get back to God's country". That's what he calls our home. The best part of growing up in the country for me is going down the same dirt roads and playing in the same river bottoms as my daddy and his daddy did. Lucky for country boys like me, Jason Aldean's "Dirt Road Anthem" was a top ten hit last year, making growing up in the country or a small town sound cool. That old phone may no longer be cool. But, I sure have some cool memories from my past on it.
Another cool thing about growing up in the country and my hometown, is Friday night lights. Kenny Chesney had a recent hit songs about it: "The Boys of Fall". The lyrics to that song describe my hometown perfectly and what it's like for boys like me to be on the high school football team. My dad saved the sports section from our town paper, The Covington Leader, and I put it in the capsule. You might be laughing and thinking that's small town news. Some may say it is stupid for the whole town to make such a big deal about a high school football game and that when you grow up it won't matter. But, in my town, it's not just about the local high school game. It's about a whole town coming together and not just on Friday nights. Big cities have lots of different high schools. Covington just has one. So, it's really a big awesome deal in my hometown. Our town will basically close down, block off the streets, and have parades all throughout the year. Including, the high school homecoming parade. It doesn't matter if you have a kid on the team or if you are a local cop, fireman, banker, or farmer. The whole town comes out and gets into it and when some other local event is going on around our town throughout the year, the whole football team will show up and support it. It is really cool to go eat at some of the restaurants around town, too. At my hometown Pizza Hut, the walls are decorated with pictures and newspaper clippings from some of the most memorable CHS sports games and athletes. I know I will probably never be a famous athlete. But, I'm pretty sure that some my hometown's front page newspaper headlines from our last football season will be on the walls of the locker rooms, restaurants, and businesses throughout my hometown for years to come. I will be proud to say that I grew up in this town and was part of that.
If you smelled something strange when you open the time capsule, then you are smelling the sweet scent of Charger sweat. I play tackle and I put one of my lineman gloves in here. Because, so far the best thing about high school for me has been football. We finished the 2011 season 11-3 and made it to the 4A state semi-finals. I hope I will get to be a starter next year and that we make it all the way to the state championship. It would be so cool to put a state championship ring in here.
Another reason I will never forget 2011, is all of the floods and tornadoes. In the spring of 2011, parts of Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, and Oklahoma were destroyed by flooding and tornadoes. Everybody in Tipton county will remember the floods we had. But, as for me, my brother John Paul, and the rest of the FPC youth, we will never forget the destruction we saw left behind by the tornadoes in Alabama. We went to Alabama last summer on our annual church youth group mission trip and helped the tornado victims. Words can't describe what we saw. Whole towns were wiped out by these tornadoes. Every year our church youth group goes on a mission trip. I look forward to it every year and it is always one of the highlights of my summer. This trip was my younger brother John Paul's first mission trip and it was really cool us both being there working together. One of the traditions of church's mission trips is a sack of letters that we each give to each other. I put the sack of letters from my first mission trip in the capsule. These letters remind me of my church family, places we went together, the people we met, and how we changed their lives with the good work we did. When I go back and read these letters, I think about how even though I was just a kid, I really did help change somebody's life by doing God's work. It gets me to thinking about what else God has in store for me. I plan to keep going on the youth mission trips with my church family every summer and when I get older maybe I can travel the world, go to different countries, and do more mission work. I have not decided what else I will do after high school, yet. I know the bible says "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV). Man, do I love Jesus! They teach us at church to talk to God, and if you ask him something he will send you an answer in a message. Sometimes when something good or bad happens my momma will say "I think Jesus is trying to tell us something." There is this joke my little brother Jack loves to tell. You may have heard it. It goes like this:
A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says "get in, get in!" The religious man replies, " No,I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle."
Later the water is up to his waist and another boat comes by and the guy tells him to get in again. He responds that he has faith in god and god will give him a miracle. With the water at about chest high, another boat comes to rescue him, but he turns down the offer again cause "God will grant him a miracle."
With the water at chin high, a helicopter throws down a ladder and they tell him to get in, mumbling with the water in his mouth, he again turns down the request for help for the faith of God. He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Peter, I thought God would grand me a miracle and I have been let down." St. Peter chuckles and responds, "I don't know what you're complaining about, we sent you three boats and a helicopter."
Our God is awesome and I do ask him about my future. He just hasn't answered me yet. When he does, I hope I'm not like that man and too stupid to get the message. One Christmas my parents gave my brothers and I each a dog tag necklace with our names engraved on one side of them. On the other side they had this Bible verse engraved on it: "But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31. My momma said she picked that verse because, it makes her feel better when she is tired of her job or worried about the future. When I dream about my future and what plans God has for me, I think about that bible verse on that necklace. So, it is the last thing I put in the time capsule.
In the mean time, while waiting for my message from Jesus, I plan to follow the wise philosophy of a popular country music singer of my era. Just like Jason Aldean sings about, my brothers and I are gonna "lay a lot of memories down like tattoos on this town".
#74 Big Bennett
I cleaned up my mess. Since, I laughed a lot, peed a little, cried a lot, & then I had snot. I didn't dare change a thing & except put a comma or add some quotation marks here & there. When he woke up he could tell I'd been crying & was concerned. I had to get up on my step stool so I could look him in the eye & tell him : "You is smart, you is kind, you is important, & you is blowing my mind"
I watched him as he put that old cigar box in his truck & left for school. I wanted to yell @ him so bad, to please be careful with that old cigar box & don't loose it. Cause, in that raggedy old box, somewhere in between his stinky football glove, a cheap necklace, & a newspaper clipping is a big part of my heart that will always belong to him.
 |
| ~The Pink Butterfly ~ |
You have one amazing, wonderful man-child there! Wow!
ReplyDeleteSooo, as I sit and read this, you know I needed the tissues just like you. What incredible work our God is doing in and through you and all your precious buffalo! Wow, I am so impressed!
ReplyDelete