Dr. Jacob Mbuga Matovu

We said good-bye a few days ago to my good friend, Jacob Matovu. He fought hard the last few years to stay alive, but finally, on Nov. 16, 2013, could fight no longer.

As he lay dying in Watauga Medical Center in Boone, N.C., I am told he had a priest and his family by his side. He was serenaded by the music of Celine Dion and Reba McIntyre.

Not a bad way to go out of this world.

I had visited him a few days earlier in ICU and he squeezed my hand, mumbling "Hello Larry."

Jacob was from Uganda, Africa. He had taught mass communication at Appalachian State University for 25 years before retiring in 2010.

He and I met in the graduate program at the University of Iowa.

Ironic how it works out.

He went to school and I connected with him in cold, snowy Iowa. I reconnected with him several years ago in cold, snowy Boone.

These are some of the things I remember about Jacob:

1. When I arrived in Iowa in 1981, I knew not a soul in the entire state, save for Ken Starck (previously at the University of South Carolina where I earned a master's degree). Ken, always a good friend/colleague, had become director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the UI. It was scary and unsettling being way out there in the Midwest--pretty much all alone with no family. And then I happened upon Jacob. If he could live and work in Iowa--so many thousands of miles away from his family and loved ones in Uganda--so could I!

2. Jacob once presented a research paper on African drums as a form of mass communication. It was part of his work toward his Ph.D. I sat there entranced as he spoke about something I knew absolutely nothing about. (I had heard drums beating in Tarzan movies years earlier, but Jacob definitely expanded my understanding of this vital form of communicating on the African continent.)

3. Jacob loved to eat. He shared many meals with my family in nearby Tennessee. My Dad (who passed away in January 2012) had never met anyone from Africa, and he was especially intrigued by Jacob's stories. Dad knew a bit about the vicious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, and he always wanted to know more. Jacob obliged, and Dad loved it.

4. Jacob once took a group of Appalachian State University students with him for a "study abroad" experience in Uganda. He wanted me very much to join the group and teach journalism in his home country, but I declined, saying: "What on earth would they think of a little white man in Uganda?" Jacob's response: "They would love you, Larry."

5. Jacob loved his family, his homeland of Uganda and his church (St. Luke's Episcopal) in Boone. And that's where he was laid to rest last week--just a few feet from the church's main entrance. It was cold and windy that day, but it seemed somehow fitting. I met him in the cold. We buried him in the cold. In the background, maybe a mile or two away, a marching band played merrily. It was "game day" for the ASU football team. My friend from Uganda would have smiled at the incongruency of saying last words over his burial site while the band played on.

Farewell, Jacob Mbuga Matovu. I will never forget you.

What happens to our time?

I'm retired now (have been for several months) but life keeps me busy. So where does the time go? A chunk of it is gobbled up by shopping.

I'm talking mainly here about shopping at Walmart. Today, I visited a Walmart in Johnson City, Tenn., and confronted, as I always do, a jam-packed parking lot, exasperated, tired fellow shoppers and long lines at the checkout registers. An aside: Why is it that Walmart has a dozen-plus checkout lanes but only two or three of them are active?

Here's an attempt at documenting what you must do to buy $67 worth of groceries at the big box store. Nothing scientific here; just my personal take, based on my shopping excursion today, on getting what you want done at Walmart.

Step-by-step shopping at Walmart.

1. Get in car
2. Start car
3. Drive to Walmart
4. Find parking space (not always easy)
5. Get out of car and lock it
6. Enter store and get shopping basket
7. Take out your list (if you have one) and traverse the store (can be several blocks of walking), and get your needed items
8. Find checkout lane where line seems manageable
9. Roll your cart into that lane and wait, wait, wait… Read trashy tabloids while you wait.
10. Watch others in line ahead of you slumping and moaning and sighing in frustration, waiting for their turn at the checkout register
11. When it’s your turn, extract your items from shopping basket and put them on checkout line conveyor belt
12. Watch tired, miserable checkout person ring each item up and put in bag(s) for you
13. Scan your debit/credit card
14. Choose debit or credit. If debit, enter your secret code. If credit, sign your name. (I just scribble mine. Who cares how sloppy or neat you are?)
15. Hit “Okay” at bottom of read-out counter where you scanned your card.
16. Get your receipt (and some useless coupons for items you'll never, ever buy.)
17. Smile when tired, miserable checkout person says “Thank you and have a nice day.”
18. Put all your bagged items in shopping cart.
19. Roll/push shopping basket to your car in parking lot.
20. Unlock the car
21. Load all your bagged items into your car.
22. Start car and pull out (carefully), exiting crowded parking lot.
23. Return home.
24. Stop car. You'll inevitably have an urge to hit the bathroom!
25. Unload all your bagged items from shopping trip, and try to assure your barking dog that he'll have your attention very soon.
26. Put stuff you bought on shelves or in cabinets or in the refrigerator or wherever…
27. Sit down and say (like George Bush famously did on that aircraft carrier) “Mission accomplished!”
28. And then, of course, you have to cook or otherwise prepare the food items you purchased, do the clean up and throw away leftovers. Days later, you’ll make YET ANOTHER trip to Walmart and repeat steps 1-27 above. Long as you're breathing, steps 1-27 are repeated over and over and over…

No need to be perfect

I heard an interesting sermon a few weeks ago at a church in Tennessee. The pastor, Tom Oyler, noted that Christians are not born on Krypton and therefore don't have superhuman powers.

Instead, Christians are weak, weary, flawed, imperfect in so many ways.

And when we become (in our view) hopelessly flawed and isolated, we run the risk of losing our faith.

But not to fear.

God welcomes us, pardons us, relieves us, heals us. We find God not just as bystanders sitting and listening in church but through connecting with small groups of caring others.

Bottom line: Join some sort of supportive group to help you get through your depression or flaws. Find sustenance and counsel from others. Don't fight the fight alone. As Oyler put it--and as Pastor Mike Lowery of Impact Community Church in Rock Hill, S.C. has frequently stressed: As Christians, we don't shoot our wounded. We welcome our wounded. We wrap our arms around them.

One caveat: Share your trials and heartaches with the right people and for the right reasons. Do not share your pain with just anyone.

So how to know where to find that trusted person or persons?

Pray, pray, pray.

He suffered mightily

By now you may have heard about Thor the bulldog.

But in case you haven't, read the story below by my former student, Jennifer Arnold, a reporter for the Herald-Journal newspaper in Spartanburg, S.C.

Thor died from the effects of being left in a car (albeit parked in the shade and with the window cracked) when his owners visited a store.

They were gone only for a few minutes, but that's all it took.

The heat inside their car caused Thor to go into shock. He must have fought mightily to stay alive, but he was doomed when those car doors slammed.

He panted. He barked and whimpered pitifully. He struggled to keep breathing. And when officers freed Thor from that locked, sweltering car, the 57-pound bulldog was found with his tongue "lolling out," according to the story. He was too weak to drink water.

I am sure Thor's owners are devastated and that this had to be one of those accidents that'll haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Some folks in Spartanburg who read Ms. Arnold's story are not so quick to forgive or overlook. One reader, for example, commented: "The dog's owner . . . was present when the dog was left in the car. While she's now whining about how "horrible" she feels about this, she's not feeling a fraction as horrible as the poor dog, with its swollen brain, felt in its final hours. As the dog's owner and guardian, she's even more culpable in this than the owner of the car is. Have the Spartanburg cops charged her, and if not, why not?

"

Here's the complete story (published earlier this week in the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, S.C.)

By Jenny Arnold — jennifer.arnold@shj.com
SPARTANBURG, SC — Lethargic and blind from swelling in his brain, his pink skin covered with small red dots indicating small bleeds under the surface, Thor the bulldog succumbed to complications from heat stroke early Tuesday.
The 18-month-old, otherwise healthy 57-pound brindle and white bulldog was found locked in a car at WestGate Mall Sunday afternoon. The windows were cracked, but it was still too hot for the bulldog, a breed that is particularly susceptible to heat stroke because of its shortened muzzle.
Thor was already in distress when found by Spartanburg Public Safety Department officers, his tongue lolling out and his breathing fast. He threw up as officers broke a window and worked to get him out of the car and appeared to be in shock, too weak to drink water the officers offered him.
Thor was treated by veterinarians at the Spartanburg Humane Society during the day, and by Care Animal Regional Emergency Clinic by night. He died at the Care clinic shortly after midnight Tuesday, said Katie Freseman, spokeswoman for the humane society.
But those at the Spartanburg Humane Society say Thor's death isn't in vain. Messages of hope and love for Thor came from as far away as the United Kingdom, and a donation toward his medical care came from Miami. Before his death was reported, many expressed an interest in adopting him. "The outpouring of support for this dog has been phenomenal," Freseman said. "He's helping us spread a very important message to our community."
The message, Freseman said: Even 5 minutes in a car during the summer is too long. Even with the windows cracked, the temperature inside a car can turn deadly for dogs in just minutes. "Five minutes in the store can turn into 30 if you run into a friend you haven't seen in a while," Freseman said. "It's just not worth the risk."
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, symptoms of overheating in pets include:
• Excessive panting or difficulty breathing; • Increased heart and respiratory rate; • Drooling; • Mild weakness; • Stupor; • Seizures; • Bloody diarrhea or vomit; • Body temperature of more than 104 degrees; and • Collapse.
Heat stroke causes brain damage and organ failure and as in Thor's case, is often fatal. Pets with short muzzles, like bulldogs, pugs and Persian cats, are more susceptible to the condition.
Thor's owners, Tony Lee Davis, 33, and his girlfriend, Tonya Middleton, 33, of Fletcher, N.C., told police they were returning from a beach trip with their children and dog. They went into WestGate for a bathroom break, and were inside for about 45 minutes, according to police. Thor was inside a car parked in the shade, with the windows cracked. It was raining at the time.
There are no laws regarding pets locked in vehicles in South Carolina. Tony Davis was charged by the Spartanburg Public Safety Department with ill treatment of animals and released from jail on a $1,000 personal recognizance bond.
Ill treatment of animals is a misdemeanor, and since this is a first offense for Davis, he faces up to 60 days in jail, a $100 to $500 fine or both if convicted.
A second offense carries up to 90 days in jail and/or $800 fine and third or subsequent offenses carry up to 2 years in jail and/or a $5,000 fine.
Spartanburg Public Safety Capt. Regina Nowak has spoken to Thor's owners since Sunday and they are very upset about their dog's death. Nowak said the incident was a tragic accident.
"(Middleton) was just devastated when I talked to her today," Nowak said. "She said, ‘How am I going to tell my kids he died?' They know what they did was wrong. Did they intend to harm the dog? No. Are they remorseful. Yes. It still doesn't change what happened. All around, it's a bad situation." Thor's remains will be released to the family, Nowak said. The charge against Davis still stands but he is not facing additional charges.
For police and animal lovers, Tuesday was a sad day.
"We were all rooting for him," Freseman said. "But if there's any

thing positive to come out of this, it's that he's been able to reach hundreds of thousands of people."

Why did she die?

I never met Anne Doss (pictured with this blog post), but I'm sure she was charming, smart, and well liked. And, of course, she was extremely attractive.

She was a mother and a wife and a respected bank executive with Wells Fargo, and her husband said she was in perfect health and loved to exercise.

But she died the other day at the age of 56 in Minnesota.

No one knows why she died, just that she died apparently from "natural causes," according to a source in the medical examiner's office in Minnesota.

She went to sleep in a hotel room, but never woke up.

How does one make sense of this? Why did God take Anne Doss so suddenly and so unexpectedly?

How to reconcile this with our beliefs and faith in the Almighty?

So senseless.

So sad.

I didn't know you, Anne, but I'll say a prayer for your and your family tonight.

Maybe the message here is that when we go to sleep, there are no guarantees that we'll ever see the sun again.

Here, in case you missed in, is the story about Anne's death in a recent edition of the Charlotte Observer:

Wells Fargo exec from Charlotte dies unexpectedly


By Deon Roberts
droberts@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013

A Wells Fargo executive who worked in uptown Charlotte died unexpectedly Wednesday in Minnesota, the bank has announced.

Anne Doss, who headed Wells Fargo’s personal and small-business insurance division, was 56.

“It is with great sadness that Wells Fargo confirms that Anne Doss, head of our personal and small-business insurance division, has passed away,” the bank said in a statement Thursday.

A spokeswoman for the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Doss died Wednesday morning and that her death was being investigated. The spokeswoman said Doss died at a Sofitel hotel in Bloomington, a city south of Minneapolis. Her death appeared to be from natural causes, the spokeswoman said Thursday morning.

Doss’ husband, Herbert Doss, said Thursday that his wife had gone to Minnesota on a business trip. Her death took him by surprise, he said, because she had not been ill.

“She was in perfect health” and “very into exercise,” he said.

Her husband, who said he stayed in Charlotte while she went on the trip, said his wife had attended “numerous very important” roundtable meetings Tuesday. He said the last time he and his wife spoke was Tuesday night.

“I spoke to her as she was going to sleep,” he said, adding that she sounded fine. “She was perfect.”

Doss was named to the insurance division position in December. When the bank announced the appointment, it said Doss would oversee a team that provides small business and consumer insurance solutions, including for auto, home, renters, life, umbrella and property and liability coverage.

Prior to that, Doss led Wells Fargo’s insurance national practices and special risk group.

Doss had also worked for Wachovia, which Wells Fargo bought in 2008, as president of insurance services.

In addition to her husband, Doss is survived by a son, 30, and daughter, 31. The family lives in Charlotte.

Purity of heart

Mike Lowery, pastor of Impact Community Church in Rock Hill, S.C., has it about right.

In his series of sermons titled "Invisible Minefields," he's been touching on demons that torment, tear down, depress, demoralize, destroy.

We might better understand these demonic spirits as the "Forces of Satan."

Always, inside us, despite how strong our faith, there's an ongoing struggle.

It's waged between the "Forces of Satan" and the "Goodness/Purity of God."

If we let our Godly guard down one iota, Satan will begin to claim us. His is an unseen dark power that will seek to fill us with despair, evil, defeat, difficulty, depression and delusion. Ultimately, according to Pastor Lowery, Satan wants to destroy, obliterate...

So how to defeat Satan, who, by the way, is responsible for all the sin and wrongdoing in our world? How to fight against NOT flesh and blood but against an unseen evil force, a mighty, cunning power of darkness and evil?

We can only defeat Satan with God.

We defeat Satan (who is smart and strategic and scheming, according to Lowery) only by being prepared for the fight of our lives. And we become prepared by putting on our Godly suit of armor.

This suit of armor includes the belt of truth wrapped tightly around our waist. The belt of truth represents integrity. Integrity is knowing and doing the truth.

Know and do the truth. So easy to say. So hard to practice and live by, but that's how we're all to live if we want to get to Heaven.

Incidentally, Pastor Lowery noted that integrity encompasses the moral, relational and sexual dimensions of our life.

Integrity, he also noted, does not mean perfection but it does mean consistency in the way we behave. We are ONE person. We should know and try to do the truth all the time in every situation.

And just as (in Biblical times) Roman soldiers put on a breastplate to protect their heart, we should follow their lead and put on the belt of truth with the breastplate of righteousness protecting our own heart. Eph. 6:14b

Lowery summed it up this morning this way: David says only he with clean hands and a pure heart can get close to God. God can't use us if we are dirty. Dirtiness causes infection. Only the pure heart gets close to God. Know the truth. Live by the truth. Jesus talked about truth again and again... Satan always wants to attack us in the area where we are impure. Mind pollution is far worse than ecological pollution in our world today. If we don't

have a brave heart, the belt of truth and the breastplate of protection over our heart, Satan will devour us.

Mike Lowery: "The greatest prayer warriors I have known in my life are typically people with pure hearts."

Words to live by and die by.

(Photo of Mike Lowery by Larry Timbs)

Farewell to my Mom

Writers have a tough time of it.

We're called upon (nay, expected and cajoled), from time to time, to write about the death of a family member.

Such was the case this morning after losing my Mom, the best mother in the world, yesterday.

I accompanied my brother and sister to the funeral home in Elizabethton, Tenn. We picked out a casket and a vault to protect and enclose her last resting place when she's buried. We worked out the details for her viewing and graveside service. We came to agreement on what kind of spray of flowers we wanted next to her body during the viewing and visitation.

We selected photographs for the video that'll document highlights of Mom's triumphant life.

We touched briefly on what we wanted included in Mom's obituary. All eyes turned toward me. I was assigned to do the writing. What a formidable challenge--bidding farewell to your Mom and trying to capture in words her personality and life's milestones.

I did the best I could.

This is what I came up with. It will appear in this weekend's editions of the Elizabethton Star and the Johnson City Press.


Dixie Nadine Jenkins Timbs, 87, passed away peacefully Thursday, July 4th, in Elizabethton.

Now in the arms of angels in heaven, she had led a full, exciting, interesting life.

She was the glue and the rock-solid anchor that held her family together. She was also tenderhearted, kind, soft-spoken and gentle in spirit.

Never boastful or loud, even when saddened, she kept some things to herself, preferring always to look on the positive side of any situation and always, ALWAYS holding out hope for a better day.

“This is the Day that the Lord has made! We will rejoice and be glad in it!” she often beamed.

She was a beautiful, loving, caring, strong-willed woman who cherished a good cup of hot steaming coffee in the morning, eagerly read the local daily newspaper, and who always had room at her table for another guest.

She prepared delicious Sunday lunch meals. Always her kitchen door was open for lunch and fellowship after church. Her soup beans, corn bread and fresh vegetables, cakes and cobblers satisfied many a hungry palate.

Her love and affection for her husband, children, sisters, brother, grandchildren and great grands was unconditional.

She was also a gifted writer—a trait she passed on to her others in her family.

At Hampton High School as a teen-ager, she had been a star on the girls’ basketball team.

She was the middle daughter of the late Ed Jenkins who died in 1962. And throughout her life, she had her father’s upbeat disposition in her DNA. She once wrote of him: “His cheerfulness sometimes did more for the sick than their physicians could do. He was a ray of sunshine to the sick, depressed…and a beacon of light for the needy.”

She could have been writing about herself.

Mrs. Timbs, a long-time member of the Lady’s Class at Valley Forge Christian Church, was preceded in death by her husband of 69 years, decorated World War II and Korean War veteran Lawrence C. Timbs. Mr. Timbs, a native of Fish Springs, Tennessee, passed away at the age of 90 in January 2012.

Mrs. Timbs’ brother J.N. also preceded her in death. He died in 1999.

During his career in the U.S. Air Force, Mr. Timbs and his beloved wife Dixie, with a baby on the way or one or more in tow, would criss-cross the country. They resided, among other places, in Smyrna, Tenn.; Niceville, Fla.; Austin, Texas; Nagoya, Japan; Maryville, Tenn; and Colorado Springs, Colo.

When Mr. Timbs retired from the Air Force in the early 1960s, he and Dixie returned to Elizabethton, where Mr. Timbs worked as a seasonal park ranger for the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

He and Dixie next relocated to Newport News, Virginia. They lived and worked there for several years before relocating back to Dixie’s parents’ old home place in the Valley Forge community between Hampton and Elizabethton.

After living abroad and all over the United States, they thoroughly enjoyed reconnecting with their Tennessee roots—becoming active in the Valley Forge Christian Church, where Dixie’s father Ed had been an elder and deacon for 40+ years. They gardened, took short camping trips in their VW van, porch sat, bird-watched, enjoyed their children and grandchildren and extended family and got involved in local politics. Dixie, as devout a Democrat as her husband was a Republican, noted with a chuckle that she relished canceling out her hubby’s vote. Both Dixie and her husband readily served for several years as Election Day workers at Valley Forge Elementary School voting place.

Dixie always celebrated the fact that in Valley Forge they had the privilege of living in the shadow of one of the most beautiful mountains in East Tennessee. “Jenkins Mountain (is) 2,000 feet of awe-inspiring scenery,” Dixie wrote in her 2007 self-published book The People of Valley Forge: A Collection of Memories. “You will not find anything more majestic or breathtaking.”

Perhaps it was living so close to towering Jenkins Mountain (named after one of Dixie’s ancestors) that inspired her to write another self-published book, her 2004 A Rugged Trip Up Jenkins Mountain And The Old Barn. In this illustrated, tersely penned little book, Dixie recalls what it was like to grow up exploring, climbing and playing on the mountain with her two sisters Nell and Ruth and with her brother J.N., whom she described as “full of laughter and happiness.”

Dixie wrote engagingly in her book about how she and her siblings got up front and close with all manner of wildlife, including a red-tailed hawk, bear cubs, honey bees, blueberries and huckleberries, wild bleeding hearts, rhododendron, mountain laurel, a great horned owl, a cotton-tailed rabbit, white-tailed deer and “a big black snake that “licked out his tongue and started slithering away” when Dixie, barefoot, stepped on it.

Many days, after playing outside to their hearts’ content

, they ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in their “girls club house” in the barn; Dixie, Baby Ruth and Nell had plastered the inside of it with pictures cut out of a magazine. The little ones also would often dip their feet into the cold clear water of the nearby Doe River.

They were the blessed children of Ed Jenkins (“a man small in stature but a giant in the eyes of those whose lives he touched”) and Maude Simerly Jenkins; the latter, a skilled quilt maker, loved to cook hot-biscuits from scratch and serve gravy and grape jelly every morning for breakfast. Maude also prepared meals for anyone in the community who had a death in the family. God couldn’t have given a child better parents, Dixie often said.

Survivors of Dixie Nadine Jenkins Timbs are her daughter Cheryl Ann Timbs and husband Crawford; son Larry Timbs Jr. and wife Patsy Robinson Timbs; son Edward Timbs and wife Carmen Timbs; sisters Nell McQueen and Baby Ruth Williams; grandsons Hugh Anderson, Josh Anderson and wife Debra Anderson; grandson Zach Anderson; grandson Crawford Timbs III; grandsons Justin Timbs and wife Amanda Timbs and Jesse Timbs; granddaughters Sharyn Calcavecchio, Dorothy Yeung and husband Patrick Yeung, Elizabeth Roberta Timbs, Jamie Timbs McQueen and husband Jason McQueen.

Also surviving are great grandchildren Antonina, Gabriella, Angelo, and Giancarlo Calcavecchio; Lucy Brooke and Cecilia Clare Yeung; Dylan, Keelan Nadine and Brennyn Avery Anderson, Mason McQueen and Jase Bryson McQueen, Khloe Timbs, and Joselyn and Lane Timbs.

Guests may sign the register and attend the viewing 1 p.m.-2 p.m., Monday, July 8 at Tetrick Funeral Home in Elizabethton.

Graveside services will be held at Happy Valley Memorial Cemetery at 2:30 p.m. Monday. David Siebenaler, minister of Valley Forge Christian Church, will officiate. Music will be by Alex Holtsclaw and Frieda Winters.

Pallbearers will be her grandsons.

Honorary pallbearers will be other members of the family. Memorial contributions may be made in lieu of flowers to: Valley Forge Christian Church, 114 VFCC Church Road, Elizabethton, Tenn. 37643.

The family wishes to express their appreciation to the staff of Life Care Center of Elizabethton for their care of our beloved mother, wife, sister, grandmother and great-grandmother.

Online condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.tetrickfuneralhome.com and signing the guest book or by fax 423-542-9499. Tetrick Funeral Home, Elizabethton, is serving the family. Office 423-542-2232, Obituary line 543-4917.