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My grandfather was John Wayne to me. I never heard him say a curse word or say something bad about someone else. He never said a mean word to us, or never a word angry word.

One day he was taking all of the grandkids from Amarillo to the home place in Shamrock, Texas so we could ride and play with the horses. He was driving 80 mph, as most people did in those days, as usual it made our insides tingle when he took the hills in his ’71 Dodge Charger.

For some reason all the grandkids were arguing in the back seat. Don’t even know what it was about. I don’t think you need a reason to be annoyed by your siblings. Any way I’m sure someone said something ugly and I remember my grandfather going from 80 to a dead stop in no time fast. He pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, took his belt off, got back in the car and laid the belt on the console.

He never said a word. Put the car in drive and tore out again going 80. We had never had a spanking or whipping or anything from him. I just remembered how scared I was and that I had done something wrong to make my grandfather so mad that he pulled over and pulled the belt.

Sometimes in this crazy world we live in, I’d like to see our loving God, just pull the bus over and bring out the belt, just to make everyone sit back and think about the things we did that may have made God mad. Just a thought. I don’t know where he’d lay the belt or where the console is, but I’m sure it would be somewhere in the United States.

Anyway that’s the belt story.