Hard Knocks and Consequences: You Can Always Learn Something

By Fred G. Dickenson

Hard Knocks and Consequences is a series of vignettes taken from the life of a man who, by all rights probably shouldnt be here. As Mr. Venable said, The Good Lord must have something special in store for Freddy, cause the devil is sure nuff trying to kill him. As you read each chapter, we hope you will see Gods greater plan for us all.
Every life has meaning. Finding that meaning and purpose is a major part of living. Cry with me, laugh with me, learn with me without having to attend the School of Hard Knocks -- or suffer the consequences. Like my dad said, You can learn from my mistakes or your mistakes. Which is less painful? I often wished I had learned more from his.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468552249

Book preview

Contents

Forward

Endorsements

Section One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Section Two

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Section Three

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Section Four

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Author’s Bio

Illustrator Bio

Dedications

Thank you Jesus for bringing me through all the trials of my life with my faith intact and the ability to laugh at myself.

For Your Glory!

Rhonda, you are my strength and encourager. You have been there every step of the way for nearly 37 years.

Kristi, Eve. Angie and Kevin.

You four have given me tales to share.

You have also suffered through the million times I told them and still laughed.

Steve, James, Tiffanie and Barrett, thanks for choosing to be a part of this chaos.

Jackie, Ryan, Cody, Brianna, Jamie, Josh, Jacob, Katie, Tim, Caleb, Zach, Trevor, Nick, Alyson, Thomas, Alex, Daniel, Kelly, Junior and Patrick. You have blessed Papaw with a whole new generation of stories to share and now it’s your turn to listen.

I love you all.

I can’t wait for the next generation.

Hard Knocks and Consequences is a series of vignettes taken from the life of a man who, by all rights probably shouldn’t be here. As Mr. Venable said, "The Good Lord must have something special in store for Freddy, ‘cause the devil is sure ‘‘nuff trying to kill him.’ As you read each chapter, we hope you will see God’s greater plan for us all.

Every life has meaning. Finding that meaning and purpose is a major part of living. Cry with me, laugh with me, learn with me without having to attend the School of Hard Knocks — or suffer the consequences. Like my dad said, You can learn from my mistakes or your mistakes. Which is less painful? I often wished I had learned more from his.

Forward

I would like to start by saying that growing up as close friends we experienced a lot of things together. Many of these lessons that we learned, we learned together as best friends. As you read these stories my prayer is that you too can learn from these experiences and enhance your life as well as your walk with God. God has been more than good to us all of these years and I think he still has more for us to do before he says it is time to end this world as we know it. There are many more things that I could say about this book but this is Freddy’s book. The things we learned together could fill another whole book. God bless, Marjoe.

Endorsements

Fred has his place carved out in Heaven—he was a school teacher! And that’s after a 20-year Air Force career! He has a way of debarking the tree without cutting it down. You’ll enjoy his humor. He pokes fun at himself, but has a way of crediting his Maker with making sense of every life situations.

—Keith Bridwell, Publisher, The Bridgeport (TX) Index

The collaboration between father and son is heartwarming. Kevin’s sketches bring the lovely stories to life.

—Sherri Jones, art teacher

The best of books reconnect us with our own memories, our own hard knocks and consequences, while blessing us with the truth and wisdom of others. This book accomplishes this. While sharing his memories, Dickenson transcends memoir, gifting his reader with spiritual truth and joy.

—Kalyn Flanagin, English/drama teacher

Section One

Surviving Childhood

Chapter 1

Hard Knocks and Consequences

I’m not sure when my first memories of being in the world truly imprinted themselves on the wrinkles and folds of my mind. For that matter, were those memories more of the heart and less of the mind? Were they really my memories, or were they the memories of my parents, grandparents or older siblings woven together with flashes, glimpses of true memories of my own? Even those memories were subject to the influence of time and often flavored by our own experiences, vague recollections, dreams and wishes.

Still, just as the oral legends of history are full of the hyperbole of retelling and embellishing of parties to the event, our tales are more-often-than-not mostly truth. That’s what I have tried to do with this, my story. I don’t presume to say I am a legend, far from it. It’s just that I don’t believe anyone’s life is meaningless. I know that there is a plan for our lives. I hope that you will find some truths in these tales that will ring true for you. Maybe you will see some of yourself in these experiences and apply them, laugh at them (and me, if you like), or simply make a connection to that Truth. Which reminds me; I had a professor once who jumped up on a table the first night of the course and yelled to the class,

There is no truth with a capital T!

Oh, really? That’s not what I have learned in my life. If you don’t believe in The Truth, maybe this glance into life of one True believer will convince you that God is real and that Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever!

"I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love

which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us.

We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces,"

Romans 8:38 (Gods Word 1995)

Chapter 2

Mr. Venable Across the Fence

Some would have called me accident prone.

Others did say,

Aw, he’s just all boy.

Fact is, regardless of what they thought, I did have more than my share of accidents—mostly self-inflicted. I can’t remember them all. I lost count how many incidents occurred, but here are a few examples: shot in the back of the head by a kid with a B-B gun, fell out of who knows how many trees, with resulting broken arms, the bicycle incident with broken shoulder blade and collar bone on my left side and broken wrist on the right. I missed several days of school over that. I was doing well in school at that point, and feel sometimes this incident was part of the catalyst for my first drop-out year.

But I digress. Back to Mr. Venable. Someone asked me once what his first name was. Best I could come up with was, Mister? Dad and the venerable Mr. Venable were chatting across the fence on our common boundaries. As was often done by fathers proud of their sons, the conversation turned to sons—for Dad, that was to me. I must certainly have been in a recent incident, because it was fresh on his mind about what happened. His comment was,

James, he said. (He called my dad James.)

You know what I think? he continued.

Nope, said Dad, who was a man of few words.

I think the Good Lord has something really special in store for Freddy, Mr. Venable observed. (Yes, that’s what they called me.)

Oh, why? asked Dad.

‘Cause the devil sure’nuff has been trying to kill him, our neighbor concluded.

If Mr. Venable could see me now, he would probably have the same feelings, except with even more evidence of my plight in life. What he could possibly miss, is how many spiritual lessons have been evident throughout those formative years. I guess the best lesson I learned in this process, was to always be aware of those around you. Your life is a living example of Christ, or should be. Mr. Venable knew our family well enough to make an observation of our belief in God and His power to heal and protect.

Life Lesson Learned: God is working in and through and for you and has been since before you were even conceived. Too many times in my life, I have seen evidence of His miraculous works borne out in consequences of my action (or inaction). God has a plan. I have learned to accept that, and to wait on Him to reveal that in His time, even if that time is never.

Biblical Truths: (God) Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.—2 Timothy 1:9 (NKJV)

But we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.—Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

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Chapter 3

Buckets and Snowmen

It didn’t snow very much where and when I grew up. Of course, it snowed more and bigger than it does today. (Global Warming theorists would love that!) At least that’s what I remember. Still, many things were bigger then. Maybe because I was much smaller. Besides, the facts seem to bear out that nothing much has changed except in my mind and memories. This memory involved a bitterly cold, grey, overcast day in January. I don’t remember the year, but it had to be before I was age four. I was almost four when we