Dear Editor,
Sunday a week ago after church we rode up Hwy. 11 to have lunch at the Junction ! We thought we would be ahead of the crowd since our church lets out at 11:30. Wrong !
Our second choice was the Links’O Tryon. That was quite busy, too and all the tables were taken in the main dining room so we opted for a table in their extra dining room .
We were the first one in there eating until a handsomely dressed older man came in . He appeared to be waiting on someone and was arranging chairs around the table behind us.
When I got a chance I turned and said hello and he did in return . Shortly after that his party arrived . I noticed a lady hand a book to a man in the party and I was very curious what it was about . When the got up to go to the buffet I picked the book up from their table and asked if some there had written it .
The guy I had greeted said he had and that made me even more curious about who he was and what the book was about .
He told me he had some in his car and he would go get me one . Gosh this all went down in a matter of minutes . As his party headed to this buffet this kind man headed to his car to fetch me a book. I was really taken aback at his generosity .
When he return with the book and a pen in hand , he sat down and started signing it and asked me my name . I told him Hilda Morrow and he immediately looked an my husband and asked ,”Doc Morrow “… We were both taken aback at him calling my husband his nickname growing up . Somehow when he was in high school he acquired the name “Doc” because his dad was a doctor and it followed him on through college and still does. The name “ Doc” even stuck with his younger brother Johnny .
So the man finished signing the book and Lawrence and I were sitting there in awe at how he came up with “Doc” Morrow .
He asked Lawrence If he knew a fellow by the name of Jack Alexander and Lawrence answered yes and said he was a good friend of his and that they were in the same faturnity at Wofford . Then the man replied that ,Jack was a very good friend of his too.
I asked if he went to Wofford and he said no but went to Chapman
High School and was a freshman when Lawrence was a senior ( 1955) and all this time we had not asked him his name.
He handed me the signed book and the name Everett Chapman was scrolled across the bottom of his GENTLE MOUNTAIN BREEZES book. We continued to make uncanny connections about people we knew and it was like we were old friends .
Lawrence and I both said had we gone to the Junction , we would not have made this connection !
Sometimes we are amazed at how things turn out and unsuspected encounters are made … like they were meant to be .
Chapman , a Baptist minister lives at the Links with his wife Jenny and is in his late 70’s. He attended North Greenville College and went on elsewhere to study for the ministry .
Today he writes a column ,FROM THE PASTORS DESK , for a paper called The Mountain Breeze that includes Lake Lure and Rutherford County and surrounding area . His well written book is filled with his wonderful words of encouragement . and some of his stories are taken from His column.
Hummm …wonder where we can go eat this Sunday ……
Hilda Howard Morrow
