I can’t believe it has been over 25 years. In the spring of 1985, we packed up our meager belongings and moved to Abilene, TX. Neither one of us had jobs.  We had been married less than a year. We unloaded our rental truck over the weekend and went to turn it in first thing Monday morning at Anthony’s Fina and Wrecker Service. Little did we know that an important chapter in our married life was about to opened.

The silly rental truck would not start, so I began to tinker with it. (I worked in an old fashioned full service station when I was an undergraduate student.) Wade Anthony, the owner of the business, picked up pretty quickly that I knew a little something about cars. He asked my why were moving to Abilene. That initial conversation led to a job offer by 1:00 in the afternoon that same day. Wade also invited us to visit the little country church, where he served as a deacon. That wonderful church hired me as an intern later that year.

I served in every facet of the Anthony’s business for the entire time I was in graduate school. I rented Hertz Penske trucks, worked in the service station, and drove a wrecker for Wade’s brother, Robert. My interest in being a law enforcement chaplain stemmed from dealing with people who came to our wrecker yard to retrieve valuables from their vehicles after fatal crashes. Wade and Bea and their children along with Robert and Ramona became family to us while I was in graduate school.

There are not as many “mom and pop” businesses around anymore. I regret that my boys are far less likely to work for a family business like I did both as an undergraduate and a graduate student as well. During the work days at Anthony’s we always stopped to have lunch together. If one of us was on a wrecker call, everyone else waited to eat until we returned. It was like sitting around the family table for a meal. It was a brown bag affair on most days. Ordering from the Dairy Queen across the street was a rarity.

We left Abilene in July of 1987 for me to pursue my first real fulltime job. But today we returned just for a few hours to celebrate Wade and Bea Anthony’s 50th wedding anniversary. It was a sweet walk back in time. As we drove home, I felt nostalgic for sure. But more importantly I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for my extended family in Abilene. We could not have been any more fortunate during those important years in our lives.

I can only hope that I can be as much encouragement to a younger person or a younger couple that the Anthony’s were for us. In fact, it is a good question to ask. Who am I reaching out to today? Who is in transition? Who is trying to further their education? As I take that mental inventory, Wade’s smiling face on that drive at his business back in 1985 will immediately flash through my mind!

And by the way, I have had several people laugh at me recently when I told them I drove a wrecker for a part time job!