(c)2009 NPT PHOTO BY DAVID POPIEL
Young Caleb Askew was buried in the Stokley Cemetery off Rankin Road late Friday
morning with Rev. Martin Riley saying the last words to mark his life.

Gasoline prices took a plunge to $2.26 per gallon along with nighttime temperatures into the 60s, during early July in our hometown as folks venture into their gardens for vegetables and insect bites.

Late Friday morning the skies were clear and blue high above Stokely Chapel Church, as I stood on the hilltop cemetery with a view across the lush green bottoms. Manes Funeral Home had set the tent and site for the burial of Caleb Askew. You recall that we got to visit with him two weeks ago when Sunset Gap work camp church members built a new deck and handicapped bathroom for the 11 year old. He suffered with spina bifida. I knew him for only a moment in his restricted life, when he held a carpenter's hammer seated in a wheelchair on the new deck. Work site supervisor Josh Dunn posed for a photo with Caleb. It was one of the last surely made of this young lad at home. He enjoyed an Aaron Tippen concert in late June. On Sunday, July 5, he was at home with the woman who has been his Mom since he was six months old, Connie France. Suddenly a shunt that supplied blood to his brain failed. He was declared dead on Monday. Martin Riley, who is a minister and worked as Sunset Gap director, read Bible versus and led in prayer as the family and friends assembled before the dark blue casket adorned with small golden crosses set against small black squares. "I am convinced that God sent a band of Holy angels to take him home," he said. And he envisioned Caleb in the arms of Jesus saying, "Take your rest child. You are now home with me." The cemetery on land donated by Ben D. and James R. Stokely is also the final resting place of Caleb's great grandfather, Lloyd France. Connie had married into the family. I also met Joan Smeallie, of Baneberry, a great grandmother. The last days of this child's life were better and happier because Christian folks working with Sunset Gap took the time to meet him and do repairs and a new deck. That's what I will always remember.

For the past couple of Sundays we have been talking about the good work of Sunset Gap and churches that send hundreds of mission members here to repair houses and sometimes build new ones each summer. There is never a shortage of those in the county who need the assistance of God's workers through Sunset Gap, at the heart of the outreach. The economic impact is significant. Josh estimates the churches will purchase more than $250,000 in building materials. In addition they buy food, gasoline, clothing, incidentals, and entertainment here, too. They provide needed funding for Sunset Gap, which lost some of its funding and also missed out on a large grant for which it had applied. Josh says he sends folks to Shirley's, Carver's Applehouse, Front Porch and other local restaurants. I have talked to people who estimate that the economic benefit aside from the blessings could easily reach several million dollars per year.

Along the Cosby Highway late last week I saw cars stopped and folks browsing through heavily blooming blackberry thickets. So it must be time for the annual harvest. As for me, I've been sticking to green beans. At Shirley's Restaurant off Cosby Highway near Wilton Springs, Shirley Hall was seated at a table with her pans full of green beans. I sat down and helped her break a couple dozen of the Rattlesnake variety, which will probably end up as a side to one of her great meals. "Who's building the cabin next door?" I asked, to which she replied the property owners, Billy and Wilma Webb.

The same week while paying a visit to Newport Federal Bank, I saw a handful of giant green beans on the reception desk. They were the biggest beans I'd ever seen and the sign described these as Case knife beans grown by Tommy Strange of Red Hill. You will get to know more about him, if I can find my way to Chilton Road.

If you've driven along Jones Circle not far from Greenbank, you've seen yardsales at a home, which I visited because of a familiar face. An older gentleman was seated in the shade, smoking while waiting for customers. He is Donald Pack and I wanted to know which group of Packs. Perhaps a kin to the Cosby Packs, Frank and Fred Pack of Del Rio or a friend from years past, Liston Pack. Yes, it was Liston Pack's brother who informed me Liston is alive and well still working in Knoxville. I got to know Liston decades ago during the height of the snake handling fever in Cocke County. Liston was a holiness preacher at the time and made local, state, and national news handling rattlesnakes and copperheads as part of religious services. I'll be back.

In plain talk, cemeteries contain the stone monuments as rememberance of lives, but all along the highways good works embellish memories forever.