JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Getting the Band Back Together

This past weekend my niece Courtney got married to a young man named Lloyd. It was a very nice wedding in East Texas. Everything was simply perfect. The wedding was held at my dearly departed mother’s church – the one she had attended for over thirty years at the time of her death in 2014. She had been something of a secretary for the church, copiously taking notes and keeping records for same. My mother started as a stenographer in the 1950s some time after the birth of my youngest sister. That youngest sister – Beverly – was the mother of the bride at this wedding.

The church was the central point in my mother’s life her last thirty plus years. She attended the church several times a week, and was a delightful and well-loved member there. She introduced my little niece to her church when the niece was a child. The niece loved the church and she became active in it through her growing-up years. After my mother passed away a decade ago, my niece continued her worship with the church, a devout and dedicated member. A young man there named Reagan Duncan eventually became her pastor, and he was the man who would perform the role in her wedding of marrying her and her husband to be. Reagan is a fine man I have known going back several decades, the salt of the earth type, godly and good through and through.

My son James is first cousins with the bride. He came to the wedding with his wife and two daughters. My niece’s first cousin on her father’s side – Brian – came. He was a teenage boy about the same age as my son back in the late 1990s. My niece’s brother David was there. He is the same age as my son and his aforementioned male cousin. Those three boys were all teenagers in the 1990s, and I loved having all three of them around. They grew into men, as boys do, and as men they went on to become fully grown men with all the duties of dads, and professionals, and carrying on the way and weight of their world.

When I reflect on my life, those years when those three were boys in their teenage years were filled with fun and excitement.

James, David and Brian were quite a crew in their teen years. They were all good boys I was proud to know and proud to be around. They knew I had basic rules that were reasonable when at my house. No fights. No music so loud I could feel the beat in my room on the other end of the house. Wash your own dishes. Eat anything you want, but don’t make a mess. Other than that I was pretty easy to get along with.

Getting together with those three grown men in their early forties at the wedding was the Getting the Band Back Together of which I spoke. Standing there with those three grown men, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, was a little slice of heaven. My boys. I do love my boys.

The wedding was spectacular in every way. The bride was stunning. The groom was loving. The wedding party included another niece and one of her daughters. Pastor Duncan was the right touch as the preacher marrying them. My brother-in-law Bill gave the bride away. The whole thing was a joy and a celebration.

As I drove back home from the wedding, I thanked God for such a wonderful day in my life as my niece’s wedding. I saw other relatives there, all the way down to my little grandnieces and my granddaughters. What a celebration of life and love it was.