When we lose the right to be different,
We lose the privilege to be free.
Charles Evans Hughes

Martin Luther King shared his dream of equality for us all, one hot summer day in 1963 and we have come a long way toward making that dream come true. But in our zeal to bestow equal opportunity on all mankind, I wonder if we have compromised another inalienable right: the privilege to be different.

I will never forget another even hotter summer day in 1980, in New Braunfels, Texas, peopled by out of sync angels who rejected conformity because it insisted they wear shoes. All of us loved to sing Bible songs, share potluck dinners created from found items and work to make our world a happy place. Not one of us fit any stereotype known to man and none of us cared.

I was housed in a fifth wheel trailer on a ranch just outside of town. I fed two horses and a donkey for the owners of the place in exchange for hooking up to their utilities and using their laundry facilities. I lived with two dogs, one cat and an exhausted air conditioner, barely able to move air much less cool it. The heat that summer was so intense that clothes became a distressing liability. I elasticized a light blue, flowered pillowslip and wore that as a survival measure when the two dogs and I walked the country roads. Every morning, Mark Croy would knock on my door and say, ”Hey, Lynn Ruth! “which meant: “Put on your shoes honey, it’s time to get going.”

Mark was in his early twenties, well over six feet tall and I am just an inch over five feet. Mark wore a ragged straw hat he found in the dumpster outside K-Mart, no shoes and jeans that had seen better days on shorter legs. I was decked out in a fresh pillowslip and tennies. We were often mistaken for Ed Sullivan’s Old Gold pack and matches before they got dressed for their commercial.

As we walked, we discussed the remote possibility of a breeze coming our way, the inequalities of rich and poor and where Mark could sleep that night. We turned to the right on the main road and stopped at Martha and Jonah’s place for some sun tea and a dip in the stream while we pondered the immense changes in weather that had taken place over the century and marveled that all the birds weren’t roasted. Mark swung high in the air in the tire that hung from the oak tree out front and Martha showed me how she had created a loaf of bread out of a yogurt starter, alfalfa seeds and ground acorns. We buttered the crumbling slices with honey from Jonah’s hive and washed it down with sassafras tea.

Martha would say how lucky Mark was that his underwear was intact because his jeans were in tatters and Mark would reply that he preferred a breeze through his legs in heat like this. That inspired another round of tea, more seed bread and speculation on God’s plan for the Texas hills since it had been months since a breeze had been detected anywhere at all.

Martha and Jonah called their dog Biff and we all continued toward town until we came to the Blue Hole. ”Let’s take a dip in the quarry,” Mark would say and down we would climb to the only place in town where we could cool off.

As soon as we descended, Mark jumped into the quarry and Rachel McGinnis poured pump water over my head to relieve me. I shook the drips from my shoulders and went inside to Luke and Becky stories they refused to believe about Midwestern snow storms. As soon as the children’s eyes drooped, Rachel kissed them good night and Mark joined me to go back to the main road with Martha, Jonah, Rachel and her husband Abraham. When we hit the main road, we hitched a ride with Mary Lou Redd who drove large expensive cars and did the books for her daddy in San Marcos, the biggest town near us. Mary Lou had a daughter named Shauna who was so beautiful she didn’t have to do anything but stand on a corner to attract men faster than flies swarm toward butter. Mary Lou also had a son no one discussed and three immense white dogs known for their determination to catch the moon even in sunlight. She dropped us off at the Sunset Market to get provisions and went home to work her crosswords puzzles. “You coming to church la
ter?” I called and she shook her head. “We’re Methodists,” she explained.

Mark and I bought what we thought we could carry and then continued until we got to the post office where old Mrs. Atlee sat sorting what mail there was and putting it into post office boxes. As soon as we entered the door, her face flooded with smiles and she stood up, hugged us both and gave the dogs fresh bowls of water. “Ain’t it HOT?” she exclaimed and we nodded. She opened her fridge, poured us some iced tea (chamomile) and pointed to a platter of blueberry muffins that still had the aroma of the oven about them. “Fresh this morning,” she would say. “Y’all just help yourselves,” and we all did.

The rest of the afternoon varied from visits to Belinda’s Beauty Shop to trim the hair from the all our eyes including the two dog’s, to stopping at the Health Emporium for a sprout sandwich and more liquid to wash away the heat inside us. If it was Monday, Wednesday or Sunday, we all gathered in a condemned warehouse that we called church to sing and love each other. If it was Saturday, we went over to the girls’ camp to watch outdoor movies. The Drive In was owned by two women who lived in a log cabin behind the big screen and kept two horses in their living room. “I don’t like them rooting around in all that grit out back,” explained Cassandra Stark. “This way, we got control.”

The movies were reruns of old forties films and that year I saw Yankee Doodle Dandy, Random Harvest, and Gaslight, twenty three times. We also saw Going My Way, but only once.

On Tuesdays, we all went on a hayride out at Christopher Murphy’s farm and on Thursdays we did choir practice. That always puzzled me. “Who listens to the choir?” I asked Martha. “It seems like were all in it.”

“I guess the Lord is the one who listens to us,” said Martha. “What do you think?”

I didn’t answer that one; I just threw back my shoulders, prayed my pillowslip would stay in place while I sang. “AMAZING GRACE!!!!” we roared and indeed our grace was heady wine for us all. Every singer’s melody blended together to produce the most thrilling music I had ever heard. Together, we showed the rest of the world the immense difference one person’s song can make in the quality of life’s chorus. I was in that choir twenty-one years ago and the music we made that summer replays in my heart whenever I forget that each of us is a gift to the universe, a gift that makes the entire world an exciting place for us all.

What one man can do is
change the world and make it right again . . .
Ain’t it great what one man can do?
John Denver