Given

De'Amon, our Roving Listener, has been visiting for the past couple of weeks with Mrs. Kimbrough. Turns out that way back in the late 1970's and early 1980's Mrs. Kimbrough had a dream. Heck it was more than a dream -- it was a great and cool idea. And she went about making it come true. She stood in her kitchen and taught a class. No one was there, but she put it on tape. She told stories as she cooked, she described what she was doing, she talked about life -- all to the students that she knew would be there. She shared what she had who she was. Who thought of doing such a thing back then? Who thought of her as someone who would do it? She built up a whole boxful -- boxes full -- of cassettes (some were on house cleaning as well). She started trying to see if she could market them. But she was discouraged in every direction she turned. And so she gave up her dream. But she kept the boxes, full of cassettes. So she didn't give up on them completely. She just set them aside. She didn't throw them away. Maybe that's what hope is.

I remember a little boy named Andre here in the neighborhood back in the late 1980's. Peanut-headed little boy. About 8 years old. He loved to watch the older boys playing football on the church parking lot in the fall. He played peewee football and every time he saw them out their playing he would suit up and stand on the sidelines with his football helmet under his arm waiting to get the call to go into the game. He just stood there day after day and week after week. But this was the big boys game. This was the teenagers, the older teenagers -- and they didn't even speak to the young 'un's much less play football with 'em. Seeing that little boy standing out there with his football helmet under his arm every single day makes me think -- Now That's Hope.

Mrs. Kimbrough has hope that was there just waiting for her to haul it out. And De'Amon, the Roving Listener, in giving her the chance to tell him about it -- she took the opportunity to dust off that hope and take it out and give it a spin. Maybe it will burst into something. It reminds me of E.B. White watching his wife, Katherine White, planting bulbs in the fall and remarking that she was "calmly plotting the resurrection."

I remember that when I was a kid my mom would say "that's a given." I was never sure what "a given" was. Maybe a given is the hope that gets put away in boxes, but still kept around. Maybe a given is what keeps a little boy who never gets called into the game showing up every day. Whatever it is -- I want to hang on to it. That's a given.