Some true stories from fifty years of preaching that embarrassed me made me laugh, or made someone else laugh. I may use a couple of articles to relate a few true stories from my life as a preacher.  Some you have probably heard me tell them, some you haven't.  Most of them involve deacons or other preachers, and I won't share names-mostly to avoid law suits... grin.
A few years back I was invited to preach a revival in a church where I had been pastor many years beforehand. I was enjoying seeing old friends again before service began. One lady, in passing conversation, mentioned her brother.
I asked her how Dickey was doing. She gave me a puzzled look and said, “Why, preacher he is dead.” I started to express sympathy, and told her I hadn't heard about it. She said, “Well preacher you ought to have heard it, you preached his funeral.” 
I had taken a deacon with me to make the trip back for service that night.  As soon as we got in the car he asked me what that lady said.
I told him he knew exactly what she said. He stood there and heard the whole thing. Well next morning when I got out  in the community where I was living then, guess what  every person I met wanted to talk about?
Yep, that deacon just couldn't keep a secret...  smile.
A while after that I had that same deacon with me when I went out visiting in preparation for a revival meeting.  He told me he was uncomfortable talking with people when we went visiting and asked me if  I would do the talking. 
He said he would be praying for me  and would do anything else I needed him to do. About the third house where we stopped a big mean looking dog was circling around the car growling at us. 
I told my deacon brother that I would do the talking, but before I went to the door I wanted him to go over there and give that dog a good kicking. Guess what the deacon said?  Yep,  “Preacher, I ain't kicking that dog.”   A lot of help he was.. grin. 
Let me share one more for today and then perhaps a couple more will be in next weeks article.  
Some time after that, the Alexandria fair week came and a church deacon asked me to go pitch horse shoes with him at  the fair. We gathered with a crowd down in front of the pavilion and were asking around where the horse shoes pitching would be taking place. 
My deacon friend spotted men signing a sheet of paper and said right over there I think is where we sign up, and so we did. A nice lady came down off the stage and picked up the list and started calling off names to come on stage, and to our great surprise, both of us got called up.
We tried to back out, but she would have none of that, so we reluctantly went up wondering what we were going to be doing. 
Well, it turned out that we had signed up for a pretty legs contest. She ordered us to roll up our pants legs so the ladies could see our legs and we were judged according to the applause we got.   One of us finished first and the other second. But there sure must have been some men with ugly legs up there that day.  
Do I ever embellish my stories for the paper.  I admit that I do. But these three are true.  And in the words of Forrest Gump..  “That's all I am going to say about that.”
Don't forget. My new book Needmore Days is now printed and ready to go. The price is twelve dollars and they can be picked up at the Smithville Review office or at Prichards in Alexandria.  
I am considering a reprinting of my original book “The Needmore Chronicles” and am trying to gauge the amount of interest in one of those.