Code Word: Chocolate Biscuit

By Marlyn Ivey

This story is about a child that was voted by his 4th grade teacher to be the most unlikely person to be successful in life. As he gets older he joins the military, gets married and becomes very successful in his career even though he retained a personal secret deep inside from everyone. Some of the secrets he will have to take to the grave as does most individuals who worked for the United States government. The child grows up and becomes a negotiator for the United States during the war while in Bosnia. Throughout his life he realizes God is on his side and the many blessings in his life proves God over and over. This title: Code Word: Chocolate Biscuit - is mentioned throughout the book as it brings back memories of life both childhood and adult. It has references to military and home life. It brings stress relief when areas of life seem impossible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781635251159

Book preview

Notes to all that read this book.

You can’t appreciate where you are in life until you realize where you could be.

One’s ability to speak should never be used to criticize.

The decision you make today will haunt you the rest of your life either positively or negatively.

As we go through life, we are often having a great time but never realizing it because we forget to look around.

Never make fun of old people because one day you will be old and then you will understand.

Code Word: Chocolate Biscuit

This story is about a child that was voted by his fourth grade teacher to be the person most unlikely to be successful in life. As he gets older, he joins the military, gets married, and becomes very successful in his career even though he retained a secret deep inside from everyone. Some of the secrets he is required to take to the grave as is most individuals who worked for the United States government. The child grows up and becomes a negotiator for the United States during the war while in Bosnia.

A child’s future is 99 percent decided by the surroundings it is subjected. It could be home, family, school, or just one person, or a combination of many things. Just because someone tells you that you will be a failure in life and you will never amount to anything is only true if you believe that terrible message.

When a baby is born the future of this new baby is unknown. Although as other people observe this new person, they try to look into its future. Based on the child’s surrounding, people often state how this new life will turn out. Many times the future is guessed right but then there is the exception. In this story, the exception proves the pessimists very wrong. This person realized early in life that God is on his side and God proves Himself year after year.

Chapter 1

In the Beginning

The weather outside this sleepy little town of Lynn Haven, Florida, was calm with a temperature of fifty-six degrees and no wind. Inside the house, it was not so calm. A terrible storm was beginning to brew and the dark and light clouds of life were starting to advance. It was time for a new baby boy to be born who had no choice but to accept the environment that would surround him. A child comes into the world knowing nothing but wanting to be loved and something to eat. In this case, the child had a God-sent mother to raise him and care for him above and beyond her own wants and desires.

In the late of night on February 20, 1946, Gladys was about to give birth to her fifth child. The screams could be heard from outside the small five-room house. A twelve-pound baby was trying to come into this world. However, with the baby being so large and the delivery being accomplished by a midwife, this child would be in the birth canal longer than normal. It was feared that in the process of this birth, the baby would not get enough oxygen and the baby could be born dead. After several hours of labor, the baby was born through natural birth. Everything appeared to be all right and the life of Mark of the Twentieth Century would begin.

The first memory Mark recalls were dreams he had around the age of three years old. The dreams (through the eyes of a three-year-old) would start with an older lady lifting him out of bed and throwing him into a wooden cabinet although, he does not remember the fall causing pain. The same dream would occur several times and very soon, the action in the dream would become fun as he sailed through the air. The older lady was most likely his grandmother. As babies are often picked up and tossed into the air as fun for the child. The grandmother must have dropped the child at least once. So, nightmares start very early in life.

Things look and feel very different to a three-year-old. A child’s brain is on fast forward much like a dry sponge taking in water. The information surrounding the child is being processed as soon as something new passes by. What a child is subjected to in life is often what the child becomes. However, there is always the exception and sometimes one can break away to become very successful.

Chapter 2

Starting to Grow Up

When Mark was about the age of five, Gladys would now have seven children and being from very poor beginnings, the family had an unforeseen difficult life ahead of them. The children’s father was not in their life most of the time. Gladys had to be the responsible person for her children but, from time to time, she was forced to live in the house with her parents. Gladys was aware of how things could be when two families live in the same house. She did not care for this arrangement but she often sacrificed her feelings so her children could have a roof over their heads.

The first opportunity that seemed to be going in a positive direction for Gladys and her seven children was moving to public housing. This housing was much like the old wooden army barracks. There was no insulation in the walls. The windows and doors leaked air. During the winter, rags were placed at the bottom of the door and the windows seals to try and keep out the cold north wind.

During the winter, the family suffered just like all the other poor people that lived in those apartments. Staying warm and trying to find enough food for her children was a great task that Gladys faced every day. This was a responsibility that she never turned her back on.

Gladys received $78.00 a month from welfare to provide a place to live and feed seven kids and herself. She often went to bed praying and crying that something would work out so she could feed her children the next day. Gladys would often do without food so the kids could eat. When her kids would ask when she was going to eat, she would say, I’m going to eat later.

It became a way of life as the church people often brought food to the house. If it were not for caring people this family would have gone without nourishment. At the age of twelve, Gladys’s oldest son, Donnie, would help bring in money for the family by servicing a paper route. Donnie would get up at three o’clock in the morning and deliver newspapers. After coming in from delivering the papers, he and the older sister Remona would help their mom feed the smaller kids and get them ready to go to school. When Donnie got home from school, he went and shined shoes at a local barbershop. What money he made he gave to his mom to help pay the rent and feed the family.

The family would try to stay warm in the winter by burning the left over newspapers in a wood stove. These left over papers were saved during the summer from Donnie’s paper route. During the summer in one of the bedrooms, it was common to see large piles of newspaper behind the bed as the bed set catty cornered in the small