Excerpts from a sermon Carl delivered in 1989, following the death of his own father:

Ever since my daddy died in May, I have felt a profound sense of change. As many of you know, the death of your first parent is hard. The death of your second parent leaves you vulnerable. There is almost no chance that I would ever have gone back to Bowie, Texas to live with him in our family home; but as long as he was there, I could have. That family door is closed...

So, briefly, I'd like to talk about my dad... My dad was born in a shed in Oklahoma, while his folks were on the move from Kansas to Missouri. My paternal grandfather's Kansas farm had been wiped out in the drought in the first decade of this century. He had bought a small general store in Missouri, but hard times left so many people hungry that he ended up giving away the food until he went out of business. Next, he became a dirt farmer. Times got so rough that my grandfather asked my dad to leave home when he was 13. Dad left, had a difficult time during the Great Depression, rode the rails, worked in the East Texas oil field, met my mother and married her, had me a few days after Pearl Harbor and my sister six years later, and worked hard the rest of his life...

I'd like to tell a story about my dad...

A grass fire singed a widow's one-room home near us. That evening several men were standing around saying how sorry they were that the fire had blackened her place. My dad said to the men, "I'm sorry a gallon of white paint and the time it takes to spread it. How sorry are the rest of you boys?" That weekend they all painted and fixed the place better than before.