The Hero

johntparishThe Baltimore mother who boxed her son’s ears during the recent riots probably never dreamed it would go viral on the internet and that she would become the “Hero of Baltimore”. She was using tough love to teach her son it is not all right to throw rocks at policemen and destroy other people’s property. Good for her! America needs more mothers like that. She loved enough to correct his bad behavior.

This calls to mind the time in 1949 when my dad was the “Hero of Manitou”. We didn’t have riots in Manitou, but we did have Halloween. Manitou didn’t have enough people to riot – a population of approximately 100.

I was 14 years old and my dad strictly admonished me that I better not be involved in any Halloween pranks, or the consequences would not be pleasant. I knew what he meant and I knew he did not make idle threats. His word was his bond.

That was one Halloween in which I played no pranks. My cousin, Ed, ran a service station and I stayed there the entire time that two older brothers and some other boys turned over every outhouse in the community. The boys were sort of proud of themselves. It was the first time in the memory of anyone in town that every single outhouse in town was turned over. These boys were thorough – they turned over their own outhouses.

The next day a local storekeeper told daddy that he saw them and that his boys were involved. That is when it got interesting for me. He reminded me what he had told me. I pleaded innocent and Ed was my eye-witness.

What daddy did next became the talk of the town. He took his two sons who did participate in the dastardly deed and made them work all day and set up and repair every outhouse in town. He worked with them and bought new lumber to repair those that were damaged. Other young people laughed at my brothers and poked fun all day.

At first I was sort of ashamed of having such an old-fashioned daddy that would make his sons such a spectacle to the community. But then I began to overhear what many of the adults at the store and the service station were saying. They were speaking words of respect about my dad. Before night fall and by the time the last outhouse was restored my daddy was the “Hero of Manitou”.

My brothers had learned a great lesson, all the outhouses of Manitou were safer in years to come, and an entire community saw a godly father “train up a child in the way he should go.” By the way, my brothers turned out pretty good. One became a pastor and one became a deacon and a Gideon speaker and both raised wonderful families and became godly fathers themselves.


J.T. Parish is the Founding Pastor of Christian Fellowship Church. He further serves on the Church Leadership Council, as Chairman of the Board of World Missions and Evangelism, and as President of the School of Ministry.