In the South, we have some customs that I hope never pass away. A lot of us send food rather than flowers when someone dies. Men walking with their wife or daughter still walk closest to the traffic. When addressing someone older than we are, we call them “Mr.” or “Mrs.” even when we’re all adults.
I’m not sure how it is in other parts of the country, and I really don’t want to find out, but in church there’s an unwritten seating chart. If a visitor sits in someone’s “seat,” the offended party would never say anything (I hope), but someone else might quietly whisper to the newcomer, “Come sit with me.”
Another Southern habit is waving for the other driver to go first at a four-way stop. The problem comes when they’re waving you on, too. Eventually, somebody has to be rude and just go.
But one of my favorite customs is pulling over to the side of the road as a funeral procession passes. It’s a quiet way of showing respect for the dead and compassion for those who grieve. Not only do you pull over, but you don’t dare pass the procession. Not only will you get some ugly looks from the grieving family, but there is a good chance you will make a new friend who happens to be wearing a badge.
This past Saturday, I found myself riding in a funeral procession. Most of the people traveling that highway pulled over. A few paid no attention to the procession or to the line of cars gathered along the shoulder. Their mothers must not have let them lick the spoon growing up.
The truth is, they didn’t pull over because they didn’t know my friend, Gary Holland. Had they known Gary, they would have pulled over and gotten in line with the rest of us.
Gary took a chance on me and hired me to work at Fred’s Dollar Store while I was still in junior high. My dad had to sign a waiver because I wasn’t old enough to work. For the next nine years, from junior high through college, I was a Fred’s employee. Though I was a year short, when I left Fred’s Gary gave me a ten-year service pin.
Think about that. There are people who spend their entire careers moving from job to job and never stay anywhere more than a couple of years. At twenty-two years old, I had a ten-year pin.
Working for Gary was an education.
I learned a lot of Jimmy Buffett songs. I was introduced to Rush Limbaugh. I learned a little about restoring old cars. I learned what moonwalking almost looked like. The keyword is almost. I learned how to treat employees. Believe it or not, I even learned a little chemistry.
One night Gary and I decided that instead of hiring the usual crew to strip and wax the floors, we’d do it ourselves. We rented a buffer and looked around the store, convinced we already had all the cleaning supplies we needed.
What we didn’t know was that some chemicals should never be mixed.
Clorox bleach and ammonia may seem like they would make a great floor cleaner, but together they produce toxic gas. Johnson & Johnson wouldn’t have approved, but the Kaiser might have.
I also learned the danger of using the almost right word.
My primary job at Fred’s was unloading trucks and stocking shelves. One day we received a call from the home office explaining that the truck would be delayed. Gary happened to be in the restroom, so one of my fellow truck unloaders answered the phone.
When the caller asked to speak with Gary, my coworker confidently replied, “He’s decomposed.”
I quickly explained that the word he was looking for was indisposed.
Close…but no cigar.
There were also lessons in pest control that you won’t find in a Terminix brochure…but that’s a story for another day.
Over the years, my relationship with Gary changed from boss and employee to lifelong friends. If Gary Holland was your friend, he was your friend for life.
In the thirty-six years since I left Fred’s, almost every month Gary either called me or stopped by my office. We’d laugh. Catch up on life. Talk about his battle with Parkinson’s. Solve most of the world’s problems.
When our visit ended, Gary always said, “I love you.”
And I believe he meant it.
Following Gary’s funeral procession, all those memories came flooding back. Yet my thoughts weren’t centered on what he taught me at Fred’s or even on the conversations we’d shared over the years. I found myself thinking about the way he lived.
Gary battled Parkinson’s for years, yet he never stopped making much of Jesus.
Sometimes God moves mountains and changes our circumstances.
Sometimes He doesn’t.
Gary taught me that faith isn’t measured by whether the storm goes away. It’s measured by whether we continue trusting the One who walks with us through it. God didn’t remove every hardship from Gary’s life, but He never left his side.
Gary wore many titles: husband, father, grandfather, son, brother.
But to me, he was my Jesus-loving friend.
Had the people driving down that highway known him like I did…
they would have pulled over.
Until the next page…
Scott Sullivan
The Notebook
Scott Sullivan 
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