A Personal Testimony . . .

THE LORD HATH MADE ME RICH

Ouida says that I should not talk like that, telling people that we are rich. It leaves the wrong impression, she thinks. We have of course been “rich toward God” all these years, or at least that has been our intention, and our marital relations have been so blessed that we are surely among the wealthiest of people in that regard. There is the added riches of physical and mental health. All this my dear wife gratefully acknowledges, but she questions my leaving the impression that we are financially wealthy. But I insist that we are. The Lord hath made me rich! Like he did Abraham, Joseph, and Solomon — and Alexander Campbell. Since this paper is sort of what one reader calls “personal journalism,” I am compelled to be personal enough to share with you what God has done for us.

In deference to Ouida’s complaint it is in order to observe that wealth is a relative thing, and so it takes less to make some people rich than others. So poor was I for so much of my life that it takes no great fortune to make me wealthy. It is different with Ouida. Her schoolteacher father was always employed, and he had only four children to support. She never had to experience the cruel ordeal of being part of an unemployed family, year after year during the depression, or the shame of being on welfare. She never knew what it was to live in another man’s house and not be able to pay the rent, or to stand by helplessly while the man turns off the utilities because of unpaid bills.

All this I experienced and much more, along with six brothers and one sister. The trying years of the 30’s, along with the struggles of the 40’s, made a deep impression on me. I sometimes hear a grateful soul, now proud of the lean years of his youth, say, “I was poor, but I didn’t know it.” Well, I was poor and I knew it. It is hard for me to have pleasant memories of those years. It was a bitter cup for a growing boy. Poverty is oppressive when one’s memory of his mother has to include her constant anxiety over unpaid bills.

I always had some kind of job during those years, even when I was but a lad of 10. I threw papers, sold magazines, peddled donuts, and washed dishes in a cafe while still in the grades. The latter job was especially remunerative, for I got all I wanted to eat and a dollar a week. I was able sometimes on Saturdays to take a lunch to my mother, and I did a little stealing along the way.

This cafe owner I worked for was a bootlegger, and he used me in plying his trade. He hid the whiskey in behind a service station across the street. When a sale was made I would dash across the street in the dark and surreptitiously place a bottle of the stuff under my apron. My mother, an adamant teetotaler, never knew what was going on. After all, I never drank the stuff, I only sold it. And I managed somehow during those prohibition years to make more than a dollar a week!

But one of those trips across the street in the dark proved to be ill-fated. Returning with a bottle under my apron, I was met by policemen and arrested. On the way to headquarters I had the feeling of becoming a man, and even now it is hard for me to realize that I was no older than my 12-year old Benjy. I would be horrified if he had such experiences. At the station a policewoman lectured to me about “going to Huntsville (the state penitentiary) one of these days,” but I paid no attention to her, for I really wasn’t that kind of boy and I knew it. I was mama’s boy and I wasn’t going to veer too far. For awhile I ran with a milk-stealing gang, and once I had to hide in tall grass all night to avoid police searchlights. When the gang was more experienced and decided to move up to stealing cars, I checked out. Milk I knew, but automobiles was a different world. The gang leader went to prison for car theft.

As a kid I was never able to understand why my family had to be so poor, but it was a way of life that I came to accept. The only bicycle I had I bought myself, a secondhand job that I paid out at 50 cents a week shagging packages for a drugstore. Clothes were “hand-me-downs,” the term Mother used; our typical fare at the table was cornbread and beans. This kind of life would have been all right, if only we could have paid our bills. Being poor was one thing, but poverty was something else. I recall one cold morning when there was no food in the house, Mother suggested that I might go to the A & P and get a few groceries on credit, since I worked around the neighborhood and was well known. The manager, and to this day I say bless him, let me have what I wanted. I took the groceries to Mother and then began to weep, explaining that I never wanted to do that again. She took me into her arms and assured me tearfully, “Dear boy, you’ll never again have to do that.” I suppose now that she resolved then and there that she would starve before she would again hurt me like that. Even now I can hardly bear the thoughts of her hurts through all those years.

This must not grow into an extended autobiography, even though my life has always been eventful and in places almost unbelievable. It is a story I may someday tell in detail, to show what the Christ has done for me if for no other reason. I have made my point about being poor, and you are better able to appreciate the story that follows, especially in reference to my claim that the Lord has made me rich.

Back in 1967-68 a brother in the Lord, Ralph Hancock, kept insisting that Ouida and I should go into the fried chicken to-go business, an enterprise that was making him even wealthier. He was the president of the outfit that would give us a franchise and teach us the know-how. All we needed was a lot of money! Ralph might as well have talked about our building a textile factory or drilling for oil in the gulf. I was a college professor who was doing well enough, and I already had more outside activities than I could care for. But Ralph kept on, confident that I could retire from teaching the day we opened the chicken place, and thus give all my time to the Lord’s work, if I chose. Persuaded in part by the need to provide a better job for one of my brothers, who could serve as manager, we decided to go for it if we could raise the money. Ralph insisted that we mortgage our home, if necessary. He was that confident.

God worked wonders in putting us in that business. Our banker trusted us beyond the ordinary, enabling us to borrow the full amount for the enterprise — after making me take him to Dallas so that he could taste the chicken! And it was only an act of God that made possible the best location in town, a self-standing building out in front of Denton Center, our principle shopping center. Another chicken to-go outfit negotiated for it, but failed to get it, and I was assured that a small business man had no chance to get such a prize spot, that they wanted the big boys in such locations. Having no better sense than to try anyway, I told the man that we’d pay a year’s rent in advance if he had any doubts about us. He let us have it without the advanced rent.

In the meantime I had already signed a lease for a less desirable location, though still good, situated as it was next to one of our universities. But the lessor returned the contract unsigned because of some technicality, leaving me free to take the prize location that was to do so much for us. So good was the location and such an unexpected boon that Ralph’s company offered me $15,000 for it before we spent the first dollar toward improving the place.

Ouida and I are convinced that none of this was accidental, but that He who gives men the power to gain silver and gold had a hand in it all. With a good product, efficient management, and a top location we were destined to do well, despite the presence of Colonel Sanders in the next block, but we hardly expected to do as well as we did, even though Ralph always said that we would.

We opened with almost no advertising, and when the big day came I placed a “Now Open” sign out in front and before that day was over we sold $600.00 worth of chicken. As Ralph said we would, we sold chicken until it came out our ears! The Colonel soon became No.2 as we went on to sell more than one-half million dollars worth of chicken in the next 38 months. It was unbelievable.

My brother did a great job managing for us and after two years started his own chicken place in a nearby town, where he continues to do well. Then for the next 14 months Ouida ran the place while I continued teaching, lending a hand the best I could. While we never had it so good financially, we realized that such an arrangement could be only temporary, for the pace was terrific. Now you wonder how we ever managed to get this paper published at all, even if late. Anyway, our plan all along was to make some money, if possible, by owning it for awhile and then selling to someone whose life was more in that direction.

Midway in this enterprise the Dallas outfit that started us sold their dozen or so stores to a big corporation in California that wanted to conglomerate in the direction of the chicken business, which resulted in our being allowed to go independent, with all the rights of the know-how and the use of the trade name Chick A Go-Go. This saved us thousands of dollars in franchise fees, another blessing along the way.

One of Ralph’s partners continued to manage the Dallas operation for the new owners, who proceeded to build another 15 or 20 stores. This man, tiring of the ways of big organizations, decided to go back into business on his own, and his first stop was our place in Denton. We were pleased to sell the place to him, for he is a delightful person, a good friend, and an excellent business man. He continues to do as well or better than we did, which is gratifying to us. But this time, over three years later, he offered us somewhat more than $15,000!

The upshot of all this is that Ouida and I can now retire from all moneymaking endeavors, including teaching, and give all our time to these other interests, provided of course that we live as moderately as we always have. How God has blessed us! I never dreamed of retiring on an adequate income at age 52. We started that business on our knees, praying that we might bless the community with a good product, praying for our employees and the scores of problems that were involved, and praying that we might sell to the right party. All this God granted and we praise Him for His goodness toward us. Thank God for making us rich. If not Ouida, me!

In the meantime I lost my job at Bishop College. They had to fire 40 professors, some black as well as white, in order to solve budgetary problems, and this after taking me away from the security of a state university. But the Lord had already provided for me, allowing me to retire from teaching if I preferred to do so. The experiences at Bishop College was also a gift of God, for it honed my sensitivities in a way that nothing else could have, and in leaving I take a part of the black world with me.

So at this juncture in my life I seem to be standing at a fork in the road, uncertain as yet as to what direction I shall go. But I have miles and miles yet to go, that’s for sure, and I have always been one to take the less-traveled road. Ouida thinks I will choose to return to the classroom eventually, this being the heart of my ministry as well as being where my heart lies. If so, God will lead in this direction.

Now you have the background to my mini-meeting plan, which is proving to be most rewarding. Thus far this is the way the Lord has led. It is a blessing to have this alternative, to be able to do this at my own expense. The high cost of travel does tax our resources somewhat, especially when I am on the go nearly all time, but I am convinced that if this is what God wants for me now, he will bless our investments to such an extent as to continue to make it possible.

For years now I have resisted temptations to be a party man, but if someone were to come up with the notion of a chicken party, I would surely be vulnerable. At least I doff my hat when I pass a chicken farm! I see now that God even uses fowl play His wonders to perform. — the Editor