My Friend Steve I wasn’t expecting it…it seemed to come from nowhere…there were no early warning signs or time to prepare. My internal radar screen went from calm green to flashing red alert… one of my closest friends, a personal hero in God’s army, had left this fallen planet. Time skipped a beat and froze for a brief moment. Bad news comes in several forms and varieties. Why couldn’t it have been “bad news” like, “Steve was out riding his bike and was hit by a car and is now in the hospital…please pray”? No, this was the type of “bad news” that lays on the surface, refusing to be absorbed by your senses, taking days to slowly sink in with the realization that you’re NOT caught up in some type of elaborate hoax. I had been side-swiped by God. As I reflected I felt God’s spirit speak to me…”yeah, side-swiped hey? Don’t you remember the initial side-swipe I pulled off?” And then I remembered. I wasn’t expecting it…it seemed to come from nowhere…there were no early warning signs or time to prepare. My internal radar screen went from calm green to flashing red…only this time it was not bad news, but great news…I was on the verge of meeting a man who was destined to be my closest friend and confidant…Rodney Stephen Congdon. Our first meeting had the makings of being an ordinary day. I’d been invited to play golf as a four-some by my good friend Stan, Pastor Jim, and Pastor Jim’s brother who was in town for a visit…Steve. Little did I suspect that I was walking into a God ordained encounter. But unlike bad news, this was the kind of event that DIDN’T lay on the surface waiting to sink in…within moments I felt like I’d known this person my entire life….no matter what the topic or how obtuse my comments….this new acquaintance named Steve “got it”…he fully understood what I was trying to communicate and would either softly challenge me in disagreement, or pick up the topic where I’d left off and take it to the next level. At the end of the day, there we stood…not knowing each other fully, yet as gitty as two school chums enjoying life on God’s playground. In appearance, we couldn’t have been more different. I’m short and small, and he was a BIG GUY…the kind of man that fills a doorway when he walks into the room. Heck, he didn’t even look like his own brothers with their dark heads of hair…Steve’s was RED… ….it was obvious mother Congdon was using a cookie cutter when she made her boys…but she definitely switched the frosting when she made Steve! Steve was a lumbering big kid in a man’s body, with a girl-like giggle, a touch of prankster, and a playful charm like a puppy dog. And Steve had a unique voice to accompany his carrot top! It was a booming baritone. Most people say, “Hey”…and it’s over and done with in less than 1 second. Steve’s “HEY” came from the deep basement of his voice and was all in CAPS and took a full 3 seconds to pronounce as he lingered over each letter in the word…wringing it out fully like a wet towel. Not just “hey, but a rumbling “HHHEEEYYY!!!” Like, “HHHEEEYYY Bro, what’s shaken?” “HHHEEEYYY Johnny, this is Steve, give me a call!”. I don’t remember what happened in space and time with Steve Congdon and I between that golf outing, but when the 1993 NCAA Basketball tournament arrived, I found myself with 2 tickets to the Final Four in New Orleans…home of my little sister Lisa. Even though I had tickets, and a place to stay at my sister’s home, immediate family members backed out for various reasons and I soon found myself going through my list of friends…looking for someone with plenty of vacation leave, flexibility, spontaneous…someone who would be able to leave to make the long drive on short notice. Would Steve Congdon be interested? I gave him a call…and the party was “ON”. Steve had just bought a new FORD truck and was ready for a road trip! “John, I’m leaving Laughlin, within an hour and will pick you up tomorrow morning.” Our drive to New Orleans could have been a movie, a guy’s version of the classic “Thelma and Louise”. We talked about our lives, our love for Christ, the King of Kings, and even stopped at 5:30 am in Memphis to meander outside the walls of Graceland, the shrine of the dead king of rock n roll…Elvis. We arrived in New Orleans pumped for a weekend of basketball, with nothing pressing on our agenda…the only order of business was Steve needing to take his new Ford truck into the dealership for its initial 5,000 mile checkup. My brother-in-law, was a Vice President for Halliburton Oil company and graciously offered to help make a connection…”take the truck down to the local Ford dealership and ask for the service manager, LAWRENCE RANKIN…Halliburton Oil spends thousands of dollars down there every year on the company fleet, and if he knows we’re connected, you’ll get blue ribbon service and treatment”. Done deal. Off to the dealership we went and introduced ourselves to LAWRENCE RANKIN,…we dropped the magical Halliburton name and were immediately ushered to the front of the service line returning within one hour to retrieve a truck that only needed an oil change. Now picture this mental image…we’ve just received top-shelf treatment courtesy of LAWRENCE RANKIN, so it was a bit of a shock when we pulled off the dealership’s parking lot into heavy traffic and the truck’s brakes totally failed! Nothing! Steve is dodging vehicles and yelling…and the brake pedal is all the way to the floor board…absolutely nothing! We coast to the side of the road and Steve turns to me and bellows, “shheeesh, John Boy…why didn’t you tell me your brother-in-law was out to kill you!” And from that moment on, for years to come, I’d get phone messages…”Hey John, this is Steve calling to see if your good family friend LAWRENCE RANKIN, can fix me up…get me a good deal?” He absolutely loved that, having me a bit under his thumb. And the name LAWRENCE RANKIN was forever enshrined in our shared lexicon. Our shared lexicon also included the following Steveism, one of his favorite expressions….“don’t worry, IT’S IN THE VAULT.” This favorite expression of Steve’s was introduced to me along with a fire-side tradition that emerged over the years…on his frequent visits to Topeka, Steve would show up at our home in the early evening, and we’d sit outside by a large chiminea, watching the burning embers of the fire. These sessions would start around 9:00 pm and would sometimes go till 3:30 am. There is something about the experience of sitting around a camp fire, which harkens back to our distant ancestors…a shared experience that slowly welds a friendship together while basking in the glow of the fire. One evening Steve leaned in closer and said, “…let’s play a game, you have to share something about yourself, an experience, a thought or a secret that you have never shared with another human being…a confession of sorts”. I don’t know Steve…that seems a bit intrusive. His response, “..don’t worry IT’S IN THE VAULT”. I responded, WHAT?!!! Steve: “HHHEEEYYY, don’t worry Bro, IT’S IN THE VAULT”. …and off we went…trading life’s war stories with all the scars, sins and assorted warts of our humanity. A game of total trust requiring confidence. Several days passed, and some of the information that supposedly was, “in Steve’s vault”; resurfaced…”HHHEEEYYY, I told my brother Jim a little bit about what you were talking about the other night…but don’t worry it’s now in Jim’s Vault”. What the heck Steve? You can’t be taking MY STUFF out of Your vault and putting it in Jim’s Vault!”…. “HHHEEEYYY Bro, don’t worry it’s still IN THE VAULT”…so that term “in the vault” became a standing joke….which translated into a meaning of, “it’s in STEVE’s vault, and some people have the combination!” On a cool summer evening we returned in Steve’s truck to his brother Jim’s house, the music of our mutual friend and Topeka’s local rock star, Kerry Livgren of the band “KANSAS” was playing over the truck’s stereo. I said my goodbyes and reached for the truck’s door handle. Steve bristled as if I had interrupted some type of holy sacrament. “What?!!! You can’t leave now! Kerry is just starting to play one of his masterpieces, “THE WALL”…I settled back into my seat, neither of us say a word in the darkness, just savoring the moment and the song’s message. A song about a man’s desperate lament to tear down the inner wall, the one we each have…A Wall that is so towering we must seek heaven’s help to tear it down if we desire to experience the fullest depths of joy and harmony…it is THE Wall that comes crashing down at the moment of revelation…the experience of salvation… “To pass beyond is what I seek, I fear that I may be too weak And those are few whove seen it through to glimpse the other side; The promised land is waiting like a maiden that is soon to be a bride; The moment is a masterpiece, the weight of indecisions in the air; Its standing there, the symbol and the sum of all thats me; Its just a travesty, towering, blocking out the light and blinding me I want to see…” youtube/watch?v=9bpVCJeKCSk I left that evening just stunned…this tight-knit duo not only now had an emerging lexicon…we now had a theme song! Additionally, I recall Steve stopping by the house one day, I left the kitchen for a moment and returned to find him rifling through the yellow pages of the phone directory, “What’s up?” I asked. Steve responded, “the good news is I’m taking you to lunch, the bad news is your choices are limited to these discount coupons in the back…the Golden Dragon or someplace called THE PAD”. At first I thought maybe Steve was just cheap…but then I later traveled with his brother Jim and found it had nothing to do with being Steve, but everything to do with being a Congdon! They weren’t cheap, in fact, the whole clan was generous to a fault. But getting the best deal for the value had been instilled by the family’s Patriarch, Roger Congdon and all the Congdon kids played it like a competitive sporting event…each wanting bragging rights on who got the best deal where…driving across town to save three cents on a gallon of gas was consider “good form” if you wanted to be respected in the clan’s circle. So now, here I sit…the bad news has been delivered…it’s been several days and it is just now starting to sink into my world. How do you replace a friend like Steve? You don’t. How do you replace cayenne pepper? You can use chili pepper as a close substitute, but it’s not the same, it’s still not cayenne pepper. Steve can’t be replaced in my arsenal of friendships…the experience of knowing Steve, and what I learned from our relationship is a unique spice. It has a certain flavor, unlike any other flavor. As I reflect on all Steve’s passions and his heart for others…and the realization that he has fallen from our earthly ranks, I’m inspired to be more, to give more, to love more…to be more Christ like…after all, someone has to pick up the slack in his absence. And I have Hope and long to see him again, just like it started…it will be a day when I least expect it, and it will come from nowhere…there will be no early warning signs or time to prepare. My internal radar screen will go from calm green to flashing red alert… Time will skip a beat and freeze for a brief moment…and I’ll be like him in a twinkling of an eye, and within moments I hope to hear Steve say once again, “HHHEEEYYY Johnny Boy, let’s get this party started!!!”
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 14:09:25 +0000
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