Cycle Breaker

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

By Mike Glenn

I told my sons to sit down and they tried to find a clean spot on the front porch of my dad’s old home place. Before their senior year in high school, I had taken my sons on what we called the “Glenn Historical Tour.” I wanted them to see where my father had grown up and the places our family had come from. Now, the old home place was falling down. It was nothing more than a pile of boards covered by kudzu. I wanted my sons to see where our family journey had started and then know how far our family had come. I wanted them to know that who we were and what we had become as a family was all due to the hard work and incredible story of my dad.

My dad grew up on a worthless dirt farm in south Mississippi and every year they grew just enough cotton to keep them from starving to death – but not much more. My dad attended the little school near them, but between days needed for farming and just not wanting to go to school in the first place, my dad barely graduated. After high school, my dad worked as the assistant to the local doctor. He ran a gas station and slept in the back office. He met my mom at the skating rink. He saw her and thought she was cute so he tripped her on purpose. That was how they met. I found out later my dad used to get thrown out of skating rinks for skating on the walls. (That’s another blog post).

Knowing he had to do something different, he joined the Air Force and learned electronics. From there, he would spend the rest of his career teaching radar systems to Army enlisted men. While at Redstone Arsenal, my dad started repairing TVs in our garage. From there, he ended up with one of the largest television and appliance stores in North Alabama. He was active in local politics and a well known civic leader.

My dad taught Sunday School for over forty years. I learned to love the Scripture from him. My favorite memory of him was him sitting in his chair, an open Bible in his lap, pen in one hand and open Sunday School quarterly in the other. His Bible was falling apart. You had to be sure you squared the pages before you picked it up or pages would fall out when you lifted it up. Once, I got him a new Bible. He never used it. When I asked him why, he said the new Bible didn’t know anything. All of his notes were written in the margins of his old Bible. I have it now and it’s one of my greatest treasures.

My dad worked two jobs all of my life and three jobs most of my life. It fell on him to break the cycles of poverty and defeatism in my family. He worked so I could have every opportunity and in turn, I could give my own sons the opportunities they desired. I wanted Chris and Craig to know they were the heirs of an incredible story and as heirs, they had no excuse not to succeed in their own lives.

When the boys asked me what would have happened if dad hadn’t broken the poverty cycle in our family, I reminded them they probably wouldn’t be here. “Think about it,” I told them. “I met your mother in seminary. If I don’t go into the ministry, I wouldn’t have gone to seminary and I wouldn't have met your mom.”

“I don’t like that story,” my son said.

Me either.

My dad taught me it wasn’t about where you started, it was about where you were going.

He taught me about generosity and kindness. When he died, my family and I stood in line for five hours listening to people tell us about the time dad had changed their lives. When we got in the car, my mom asked me, “Where were we when your daddy was changing all these people’s lives?”

We were sitting in the car, I told her, blowing the horn and yelling at dad to come on. We wanted to go home.

I missed my dad a lot this past Father’s Day. I wanted to celebrate him today. My dad broke the cycles of poverty and brokenness in our family. I’m grateful for his sacrifice and work. I thought about all the stories he left me – about Hazel falling out of the car, digging ditches, working with Peter Rabbit. Remind me later and I’ll tell you about those stories.

But today, I wanted to say I’m the very proud son of John Marshall Glenn. I pray every day my life will have the impact his life did. I thank God for him and for all the dad’s who break the cycles of the past and open up new futures for their families.