Finding Gold

     Back in the summer of 1964, and another day with no adult supervision.  I don't know where our dad was, but it was better for us kids.  Our mother had left us in the fall of 1963, when I was 7 years old.  I didn't see her again until I was 13.  She came by the house, but never got out of her car.  But, back to the summer of 64, like I had said, we were without adult supervision.  Us kids were hungry, and it was time for us to go look for food.  We had several places to look.  The first one was behind a super market.  We could usually find some lettuce and carrots there.  We didn't find anything at the second place.  The third place was all the way across town, but if there was anything there it would be worth it.  You see, it was a donut shop!  We talked all the way there, dreaming of how great it would be if we could find some jelly donuts.  We finally got there, and we jumped into that dumpster so fast.  My brothers would always put me in the dumpster because i was the smallest.  God surely was watching out for us that day.  In the dumpster there was a box, and it looked new.  It was probably about 2'x2'x2'.  We opened up that box and it was like finding gold. In that box, there was every kind of donut that shop made. Even jelly!  Someone had stacked the donuts in that box so neatly, that you couldn't fit another one in it.  I looked out of the dumpster at the donut shop and saw a man that looked like he worked there.  I was afraid he was going to tell us to get out, but he saw me looking at him, and he just smiled and waved.  He must have seen us there many times.  That box of donuts was so heavy.  My older brothers found a stick and was able to put it through the box to make handles on each side.  It made it alot easier to carry.  We could not let our dad see these donuts.  You see, a few months earlier, my brother Boone had received a large bag of apricots from a lady across the alley from us.  Boone was so happy about those apricots because he had something to eat.  My dad saw Boone eating those apricots, and was so angry that he slapped him so hard he fell off the chair.  He was in so much pain, but our dad made him sit there and eat all of those apricots until they were gone.  This is why we couldn't let our dad see the donuts.  But, we had a plan.  We would hide them in our fort.  It worked.  Our dad never knew about them.  We ate on those donuts for days, even the ones that had gotten hard.  The Lord Jesus was always watching over us kids.  My brothers, sister and me all grew up to know the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior.  Praise God Almighty, he knows it all.

                                                            Daniel L Keith