How Best to Remember

It has been almost a year since Tyre Denney passed away.  In some ways it seems like only yesterday.  In other ways it seems like forever since we last saw his smiling face and listened to his voice.  As I reflect back across the many years he was part of our lives, it is difficult to think of Tyre Denney as a memory.  I'm sure many, like me, still feel his presence just about every day in one form or another.  I suppose that presence also brings back memories that we may have forgotten from long ago or maybe from just a year or two ago.  As we remember our Tyre as a father, grandfather or great-grandfather, husband, brother or uncle, pastor or just great friend, I think "history" should remember him as a "church builder".  When I think of what he accomplished while on this earth, it is easy to remember the family he and Mom "built" and the warm memories of family reunions and having him as a Dad.  But, he should also be remembered for his gift of building churches...not just the buildings that housed the church but the people that were the church.  I cannot attempt to put a number on the many people who remember Tyre as their pastor or just their friend. 

There are people I will never know who remember him from as far away as Kenya in Africa to Wyoming and Montana to Anderson and Franklin County, Kentucky and other places that I may never know.  I found some old pictures of the first church that my Dad helped build.  He was still a student at Samford University in Birmingham but we made the drive to Happy Home Baptist Church in Leeds, Alabama many times over a year or so before the church bought land with a two-bedroom house for us to live in while the new church building was built.  He literally helped the men of the church build the new building on weekends or any other time they had a few hours to spend.  And, he continued to take college classes and work part-time jobs to provide for his family.  All this while learning to be a pastor of a growing church of believers.   The attached pictures are the "before and after" views of the Happy Home Baptist Church in 1963 and 1964.  The picture of Tyre is beside an addition that was made to the old church in 1963.  He was very proud of that sign but did not want his name to have the same size letters as the others on the sign...he was that humble but his name was not readable from more than 20 feet away.  The last picture was taken about 30 years after the new church was built.

He did this all over again at the second church he was called to lead as pastor, the Eden Westside Baptist Church in Pell City, Alabama.  That church burned because of an electrical fire only a few weeks after we moved there in 1965.  Tyre helped rebuild that church as the church body and his family continued to grow and while still a student at Samford.  After graduating in 1966, my Dad continued his studies, at the age of 36 years old, at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky while still a pastor to the church at Eden Westside.  He rode the L&N Railroad train from Birmingham to Louisville every Monday night, took graduate courses during the week and returned to his family and church every Friday night for the first year of his seminary study.  As many of you know, Tyre moved our family in June of 1967 to Alton, Kentucky so that we all could be closer to Louisville but also so that he could lead the Alton Baptist Church in its own building program.  He continued to help build churches in Wyoming, Montana and eastern Kentucky during summer mission trips for many years after he "retired" from being a full-time pastor.  Today seems like a good time to remember and honor Tyre Denney's legacy as a "church builder".  I will forever be in awe of what Tyre Denney was able to accomplish for the Lord in his lifetime and I will forever regret not telling him enough how proud I was that he was my Dad.

The Fourth Sunday in August

August was always a special time for Tyre Denney.  His birthday was the 25th of August.  He would have been 80 this year.  Mom and Dad were married on August 14, 1948.  And, the fourth Sunday in August each year was the Denney Family Reunion.  Most of the time it was the last Sunday in August and it was always close to Dad's birthday; sometimes it was the same day.  My grandmother, Leone Denney, always said the reunion is on the last Sunday in August, except when there are five Sundays in August, and that year it won't be the last Sunday, it will be on the fourth Sunday.  This year there are five Sundays in August so next Sunday will be the Denney Reunion.  I don't think anyone in my family will be going this year.  Dad didn't go last year because he wasn't feeling up for the trip.  It was the first year he had missed in many years. He was recovering from knee replacement surgery and he just didn't feel that well.  He did plan to go this year and if he was here and able to go, I would go with him.  But, it will not be the same without him there.  He wrote an article back in 1991 about going to the reunion each year.  It is worth remembering.  Dad wrote,

I didn't go to church on August 25th because I was at the Macintosh Passive Recreational Facility in Carroll County, Georgia for the annual Denney Reunion.  For over 50 years, those of us who are descendents of my grandparents, James Thomas and Laura Smith Denney, meet every year for about three hours on the fourth Sunday in August.  When I was a child, we went, period.  It was still that way when Betty and I first married.  But after I became a pastor, it was difficult to get away and I missed several.  In fact, in the later years of daddy's life, I rarely took advantage of the opportunity to spend some time with, as I say it, people who know how to pronounce Tyre and spell Denney with the proper amount of e's.  Strangely enough, since he passed away, I haven't missed a year--24 straight now, if I'm counting right.  Long enough to see his generation of seven brothers and four sisters shrink down to the only one that remains, his baby sister, my Aunt Gerila.  And, for all those 24 years, since I'm the only one of the preacher persuasion in the family--except the one who married one of my cousins, but they never come, it's been Aunt Gerila who's come over to put her arm around me and say "Tyre's going to say a few words to us now and then ask the blessing on our food."  For a number of years, I tried to say a few words.  Words about the common name we share and the love we have for one another that draws us across many miles so we can spend a few minutes together once a year.  And better than that, since we are a Christian family, about the Savior we share and the privilege we have to tell our world about His love.  But my emotions would get the best of me and I'd usually be so full I couldn't handle it.  So I've just about given up on trying to do that.  Now I just try to get through the blessing without puddling up.  That doesn't work too well either.  But if the good Lord is willing, the creek doesn't rise too far, the Gideons can fill my standing offer to have a speaker here on the last Sunday in August, and I'm still around here, I'll miss church one time next year too.  I'll be back in the land of red clay dirt, tall pine trees, blue skies, fleecy white clouds and people who know how to say Tyre.  And Aunt Gerila will hug me again and say, "Honey, that's alright."

I'm sure Aunt Gerila will be hugging Dad and saying the same thing to him this year.

Thanks for the Memories

Many of you will understand why this has not been an easy one to write.  Father's Day was not the same this year...I'm sure it will never be the same as it was when my Dad was living.  Some of us spent the day with Mom and that was a very special time.  We didn't have any of our children in town but that is something we have learned to accept when they live in Washington, DC, Oceanside and Ridgecrest, CA and wherever the Air Force has our son, Daniel, at the moment.  We didn't see them on Mother's Day this year either.  But, we did have everyone together for Independence Day this year.  So, that was our Mother's Day and Father's Day, Grandparents Day, and whatever other special occasion we would like for it to be.  And, special it was!  The last "Father's Day" I will remember with my Dad was last December when the four James Tyre Denneys were able to get together in Kentucky a few days before Christmas.  All this reminded me of one of Dad's articles that was published in the Anderson News on June 14, 1989:

Father's Day came to our house a week early this year.  I don't think anyone planned it that way, it just happened.  All my J's, except Jody who showed up even earlier on Saturday, were home this past Sunday, a week early.  Next Sunday they'll all be scattered to the four winds again.  So, even though no one said anything about it, I took it for Father's Day.  Father's Day still doesn't come easy to me.  The memories I have of Daddy and those long ago days at the Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church in Heard County, Georgia, on the third Sunday in June, which coincided with Father's Day, still tug at my heart strings.  I didn't know it at the time, but I was storing my memories in my bank that are priceless.  Now they come sweeping back with interest.  Recalling being smothered half to death in the ample bosoms of snuff-dipping great aunts is far more pleasant than when it happened.  Pleasant, yes, but having to admit that those days are gone, never to return, isn't.

Neither is the fact that the days when my children were small are gone, too,  The daddy in me longs for the day when the sound of little patter-feets filled the house; instead of their memory causing a lump in my heart.  I'll always be convinced that the best days of a man's life are those he spends raising his children.  I have no objections about these I'm living now.  Grown children are a blessing and I know the memories of today, stored as they will be, are just as priceless as those of their childhood.  They too will come back one day--with their added interest.  But it doesn't alter the fact that our Lord certainly knew what He was doing when He made it such that we would have little children come into our homes where we could love them, nurture them, love them, feed them, love them, enjoy them, love, and then love them some more, for 18 or 20 years or so.  He did know what He was doing. 

So, on this day that was Father's Day to me, a little misty-eyed remembering didn't hurt at all.  Nor did it to say one more time to each of them, "Honey, I love you."  Or, to borrow a phrase, "Thanks for the memories."

Save the Best for Last!

I know some of you may be tired of reading about airplanes; there is always one more airplane story to tell when you write about Tyre Denney.  This one may be the best of all; it is certainly the best DC-3 story and I had almost forgotten about it.  He wrote about this encounter many years ago in his weekly newpaper article:

I grew up near the Atlanta airport and I can still remember the sights and sounds of a Douglas DC-3 as its engines came to life and it took off into the sky.  The pilot would set the throttle for about 1200 rpms, the mixture control to "full rich", give it two shots of primer, and engage the starter.  After three blades had passed by, the ignition switch would be turned to "on" and, if everything went well, the engine would start.  The first three or four cylinders that fired would burn the excess oil and gas from the exhaust collector ring with a fearsome display of fire and smoke and noise.  Then, as the others began to fire, over 1,000 horses would settle down to a deep-throated roar, waiting for their counterparts on the other wing to come to life.  After that, it would take but a few minutes to taxi out to the active runway, usually 27 right, get tower clearance, set full flaps, push throttles and mixture controls to the firewall and release the brakes.  Then the beautiful bird would slowly gain speed and, leaving the awkwardness of its time on earth, climb majestically and gracefully into its natural habitat, the sky.

I saw one again last week.  Actually I heard it before I saw it.  It was a cool, crisp morning and my first thought was that I was hearing a big truck but the sound was coming from the wrong direction.  Then, as it got a little louder, I recognized the unmistakable sound of two Wright R 1830 aircraft engines spinning a pair of Hamilton-Standard propellers and a DC-3 began to take shape in the northwestern sky.  I just stood and watched.  The sun bouncing off the polished aluminum made my eyes water but I wouldn't look away for anything; a speck of history was cruising by at 130 knots. 

Nearly as old as I am, the airplane must have been at about 3,000 feet and on a heading of around 110 degrees going to who-knows-where in the southeast.  In less time than it takes to tell it, it was gone from sight.  The birds twittering in the trees soon drowned out the last faint sound of the engines my straining ears tried to pick up.  After a minute or so, I began to think about me.  I, too, am earthbound, awkward, often out of place; a misfit in a foreign land, a wandering pilgrim, a sojourner.  But I have the lively hope and blessed assurance that one day, as a child of the King, I will slip the bonds of earth and fly away home to heaven, my spiritual habitat.  Powered, not by a pair of Wright 1830s, but rather by God himself.

And he did just that.  And now you know the best DC-3 story that Tyre Denney ever told and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

One More Airplane Story

There is at least one more story to tell about Tyre and the DC-3 airplane.  I was expecting someone to point out that the picture below was not of Dad standing next to a DC-3.  Some of you may know that the plane in that picture belongs to Ken Jordan.  I'm very glad to say that Ken reports his Champ is very close to flying again after he has spent many months putting it back together from that "hard landing" a few years ago.

Dad wrote about one of his encounters with a Douglas DC-3 in a newspaper article in July 1994.  I will continue to look for a picture of Dad with a DC-3 but below is his recollection of that encounter:

This past Saturday, two sons-Jim and Jeff, and four grandsons-Ty, Daniel, Jared and Jordan, and I went to the International Air Show in Dayton, Ohio.  As we walked through the front gate, sitting there in all her glory, was a restored Piedmont Airlines DC-3.  I was over, under, and all around it and would have gone in it but the "air stair door" was roped off and a big fellow was standing in front of it.  But all was not lost.  On our way to where the Air Force planes were parked, Jeff spotted another one.  This one had been restored by some Continental employees who were a more congenial lot.  In fact, after I had invested $2 in a tie tac they were selling and walked over to look at the Boeing 727, Ty came running to find me.  "Daddy D!  Daddy D!  Come over here!  There's a man who wants to meet you!"  When we got back to the Continental 3, Jim explained that Ty, wanting to get a closer look, had said to one of the men, "My grand-daddy used to work on these airplanes, too."  That's all it took.  Blood is thicker than water and engine oil is thicker than that.  After Jim introduced us, I was treated like a long lost cousin.  In less time than it takes to tell it, I was through the door, up the sloping passenger compartment, and standing in the cockpit touching the controls, smelling the smells, seeing the sights, reliving those days of long ago.  And expecting the engine to go to turning over just any second.  In a little bit, I fumbled my way back down the aisle, and as I stepped down the air stair door, my new friend asked, "Did it bring back memories?"  "Memories?  Friend, this'll bring tears to your eyes."  And it did.

And, it still does today.  Some of my fondest memories of Tyre are when airplanes were involved.  Whether we were looking at them on the ground or watching them fly at an airshow in Ohio or Nebraska or Mather Air Force Base in California; or flying a Cessna or Piper to Bowman Field in Louisville for lunch; or flying across eastern Kentucky and then deciding to fly on over to an airport in Virginia for lunch just because we could, my Dad and I shared a passion for airplanes and shared passions between father and son are to be cherished for a lifetime.  And, I will.

It Started With the Douglas DC-3

Many of us have heard stories about Tyre working as a mechanic for Delta Airlines in his early years and because of that he was always interested in anything that had an engine. He also had a love for airplanes....but I don't recall him having much interest in gliders or hot air balloons. If it didn't have an engine, my Dad would only give it a passing glance. While we lived in Dayton, Ohio, Mom and Dad made several trips to visit and most of the time these trips would include a visit to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB. I also spent a few hours with Dad in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, in late 1994. I know that Tyre loved airplanes but he was fascinated with their engines. He could tell what kind of rotary engine an old airplane had in it by the sound of it running. The most memorable airplane story I have of my Dad was when we went to an airshow in Dayton the summer of 1994. But, that story will have to wait until another time. Tyre wrote an article once about his early days at Delta:

"...in July of 1947, about five weeks past high school graduation, I went to work in the mail room of Delta Air Lines and fell in love with the flagships of their fleet, the Douglas DC-3. My salary was $100 per month. Since Mr. C.E. Woolman, the president, wanted his mail delivered on Saturday, Pete Parker and I took turns being off Friday afternoon and working on Saturday morning. Mr. Woolman was a southern gentleman of the old school; polite and courteous to everyone, including the lowly mail room boys. A trip to his office was always an experience. I remember being there the morning in the fall of 1948 when Donald Douglas, president of Douglas Aircraft Company, called him about the contract for the five DC-6s we had ordered. Mr. Woolman was showing me his shotguns when his secretary came in to tell him Mr. Douglas was on the line. The great man apologized to me for the interruption, saying, "Don't leave yet, I want to show you another gun I have." After a pause he said, "Well, Donnie, I guess we'll have to keep the bankers happy. Tyre is here in the office with me. He'll mail the contracts today." There is no reason to believe that Mr. Douglas ever knew who Tyre was. But, even as the lowest man on his employee totem-pole, I was a person who was important to Mr. Woolman. After I went to work in the engine shop, he always knew me, and always inquired about Betty and Jennifer and Jim."

My Dad always thought of himself as part of the Delta family, even years after he had moved on in his life. I'm sure the influence of C.E. Woolman had a great deal to do with his sense of the Delta family and I'm sure it also influenced Tyre's great love and respect for others during his years as a minister and true man of God.

Now For The First Verse!

I couldn't leave off the first verse to this great song so I made it a two-parter....in case you are confused, due to the file size limitation, I could not post the entire song at one time. Hope this is a little better than just hearing the ending from last time.