His Story of His Father’s Son

By Robert Curtis

My book is a narrative about me, my struggles, and how I ultimately was able to deal with them by the grace of God. Sometime I won, some of the times it seems that the devil won, and some of the time I was left holding the bag. But I now give God the glory for all those time regardless. Some people take their life story with them to the cemetery. Thank God for giving me the faith to share mine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669848288

Robert Curtis

Robert Curtis is a former attorney who, in the course of his career, taught law as well as working with various intelligence and security services and large international commercial enterprises. His work gave him a unique insight both into the world of international business and banking and the operations of security services.Robert travels extensively both by air and by road from his bases in New York and Europe, gathering material for his writing.Robert has an abiding interest in martial arts which he practiced internationally and taught for many years, having had such eminent instructors as Mitsusuke Harada (Karate), Kenshiro Abbe (Judo & Aikido) and Kazuo Chiba (Aikido) as well as a pupil of Yukio Tani who, in turn, was a pupil of Jigoro Kano, the founder of modern Judo. In addition to fast cars and martial arts Robert enjoys clay pigeon and pistol shooting as well as climbing and paragliding.

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Curtis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James

Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the

KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan

Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/10/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

846716

CONTENTS

Chapter 1   Introduction

Chapter 2   College Barred

Chapter 3   A. C. Spark Plugged

Chapter 4   WAICO Whacko

Chapter 5   Mom’s Stroke

Chapter 6   First Retirement

Chapter 7   Divorce Delays

Chapter 8   Settling In

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Life is a story. It comes to us the way a story does, day by day. Every day we wake up and we start a new day. We never exactly know what will happen next. You may have a good day or a bad day. For the most part, it depends on you. Each day has a beginning and an ending. Whatever happens, it’s your day.

So now I want to pour out the story of my life to you, the reader. Whether it is good, bad, ugly, happy, or sad, it is my story. The story you are about to read is a true story, but some of the names have been changed for obvious reasons. And I want to truly tell it as it happened in my life. I am motivated by the thought that my four grandchildren—Asmah Ansari, Usama Ansari, Abdurahman Ansari, and Habbibah Ansari—will one day read their old grandpa’s life story and will understand the dynamics of why he chose to be different. The ultimate hope I have is that these precious moments of quiet reflections will help convince my grandchildren and many, many others that there is a reality in getting to know and serving the true and living God and his Son Jesus Christ. I pray daily that they individually will come to know my Jesus as their Lord and Savior. He is the only way to heaven, and he is worthy of all their hope and trust.

I love to read stories with happy endings in which all the problems are solved, all the loose ends are tied up, and all the people live happy ever after. I’ve had some happy endings in my life, but I’ve also endured many disappointments and heartaches caused by the loss of jobs, possessions, and loved ones. Through the years, I’ve discovered that life is more like an adventure than a fairy tale.

In the adventures of life, the road is often rough if you are poor and especially rough if you are poor and black. Happy endings are not always expected. Currently, I am struggling with senior citizen issues and I have no idea what will happen with all my issues. But since I have put all of my trust in God as Moses did, I know that God will be present with me. But I have to follow Moses’s advice to Joshua to be of great courage because God will continue to be with me, and I will be able to find the strength to endure all hardships. I have chosen to trust and obey God like Moses and Joshua, and I hope that my life story will show that putting my trust in God’s faithfulness has been well-placed.

Then I felt that I was called and prompted by the Holy Spirit to write my life’s story: a book about the most devastating things that have happened to me and how I was somehow able to bounce back and keep moving forward. So, the question was no longer whether I should use my gift to write a book but whether I could get it done before the onset of dementia or some other debilitating disability or even death. There was also the question of how I could jog my memory to extract enough details and facts together to make my book a worthwhile read. Because my memory tends to morph into stories that otherwise would not get told, I apologize if I confused you as to who I am while I am writing or my writing style.

In this book, there are seven major calamities that I will be sharing with you as I reflect, journal, and record the feelings, imaginations, insights, desires, struggles, and victories that I have experienced on my journey called life.

I will show that when I was a young lad—after I was saved—I asked the Most High God not to call me to be a preacher. Had I known earlier in life that I would someday write my life story, I would have been more careful in what I did, and I would have taken copious notes along the way.

The normal way through life is steady and straight. But what happens when there are bumps in the road along the way? My journey has been both curvy and erratic too. Sometimes my life seemed to be smooth, with only a few problems for a while, and then suddenly, one devastation after another would set in. Too often, I would muddle things up by putting my trust in myself and other people instead of putting my trust in God all the time.

Putting my trust in the Most High God has been a growing process for me. But it seems that every time I almost let go, one of his seasoned saints will call to check on me and encourage me at the right time. I also believe God is getting me ready for what he wants me to do next or what he wants me to be or have. Down through the years, God has not only kept me but has kept me in the game of life, ever nudging me forward and upward as I go.

Sometimes when life doesn’t go the way we plan, we may feel that God has forgotten us. As you will notice, I have felt like that on several occasions during my life journey. Although struggles persist and the future remains unknown, through my trials and tribulations, I can become mature, complete, and even wise. And it’s important for me to realize that no matter what, God is working through my trials to bring out my good for His glory.

When I look back, I can see where I could have, should have, and would have done better if I had had another chance. But hopefully, everyone will feel my unending joy and will give praises to my heavenly Father. Please excuse me if I am repetitious in saying that he is as great as he is awesome and as awesome as he has been good to me.

At this juncture in my introduction, I would like to pause and tell you about my greatest joys and proudest achievements. I have designated the ones listed below as my Golden Dozen. Even though they are not in any particular rank order, I thank the Most High God so very much for enabling me to experience each and every one of them. And I can say with some degree of certainty that they belong in my Golden Dozen. I only wish my mom could have witnessed all of them with me. I know she would have been so proud of her Buddy Wes. Nevertheless, here is my list:

1. In early April 1954, I graduated from Tribulation Elementary School. I was so very happy that I would be catching the school bus to go to Murphy High. Instead of walking four miles to school, I would now only have to walk two miles to Aunt Violet’s house to catch the bus with her children, Nora and L. S. Morris.

2. In 1951 I saw some of my older siblings for the first time. I had heard a lot about them, but this was the first time I was able to meet some of them in person when they came to see us way back in the woods late one night in the early summer. Ned Willie, Douglas, Pecolia, and some other people came to see us late that night. The next day Hattie and I could hardly wait to go to Aunt Violet’s house to tell them about our visitors. By the way, our siblings wanted some watermelons, but it was too early for ripe watermelons.

3. During the spring of 1952, I won third place in the Leake County Spelling Bee Contest. As I recall, the first- and second-place winners were much older than I was, and they were from the high schools in the county. (The following year, 1953, I won second place in the county behind a boy by the name of Howard James Peavie. In 1954, he and I became classmates as freshmen at Murphy High School).

4. In the summer of 1956, I won the Leake County oratorical contest by the Palace of Children of the Masonic Lodge. However, I lost in the district in which many people had said that I should have been selected as the winner, and of course, I agreed with them.

5. In April 1958 I was named valedictorian of the senior class of forty graduating seniors.

6. In early 2000 in the month of February, I was ordained as a deacon at New Hope Baptist Church, now one of the largest Black Baptist Churches in the state of Mississippi. I served as a deacon many years before at other churches, but this was the first time I had been thoroughly trained for the office by Dr. Jerry Young.

7. In March 2012 I signed my divorce decree. After four different attorneys and seven long years, I was set free from Ollie.

8. After