Divinity
A year ago I wrote a story that ended up in The Saturday Evening Post about my childhood memories of Christmas caroling.
Of course there were inventions (I was never as cool as Bly), but the setting and two of the principal characters came straight out of reality.
Leo and Margaret Porter were two of the kindest people I met as a child. Margaret really did make divinity candy (her kitchen table was the first place I tasted it), and we really did carol all over the city and end at their house because they made the best hot cocoa.
Leo did carry around a pocketful of change that he jingled, and he maintained our church grounds on a red Snapper riding mower. He was also a barber, who worked for many years in Springfield, MO, my hometown.
Memory is a funny thing, especially for a writer. You plow over your past, searching for clues about who you have become, and if you’re honest, you realize the people who shaped you are still alive, in the strange cellarage of your mind. If you’re very lucky, you embroider those people into the present by way of a story, one which transforms the influence they had on you into something that touches others, and lives on and on.
Many people have told me how moved they were by my story. But I can’t take all the credit. Years ago, a kind couple gave a small boy a piece of candy. He never forgot it.
As we near Christmas, I hope you honor the acts of kindness that have shaped you. Call the relative you don’t particularly like. Share a cup of coffee with a stranger. Smile at the tired store clerk. You have no idea how far into the future your small act might ripple.
Merry Christmas!
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/03/divinity/
Many thanks to Tammy King, Margaret and Leo’s granddaughter, and her parents, Rick and Sandra Porter, for these photos.
This caroling sheet is the exact one we used.
