Johnny Walker

Los Angeles was “a nice place to visit,” but it was too expensive, too far away, and it never ever seemed like home. So after living there for about a year, I put in a bid to transfer to back to Florida. Within a few days my request was approved to work at Delta’s Jacksonville reservation office.

So, in June of 1991, we gave our second-hand furniture back to Goodwill, and packed up our personal belongings and had them shipped them to Jacksonville, Florida via Delta Cargo. The four of us left Los Angeles by car, headed back to Florida.

We made it to Jacksonville, got our furniture out of storage from Tampa, and moved into a nice (and practically new) lease/option-to-purchase home in Orange Park, a suburb just south of Jacksonville

Megan and Michelle in Orange Park in 1991.

After living in an apartment in LA for the past year, I thought we finally have a nice place to call home; a place to settle down, one that could be ours long term. Until my first day at work…

I walked in and found myself somewhere between disbelief and shock. It was nothing like the Los Angeles office. The carpet was worn, the walls needed paint, and they were still using the old big box single-screen computer monitors. My first thought was, they’re going to close this office. 😳

I mentioned it to a couple of other employees that I had just met, but could tell they had no idea what I was talking about so I dropped it. I decided just to be thankful that we were back in Florida, and that Harold had already found work at a car dealership, and that we were living in a nice home. I decided not to worry about Delta closing the office.

Do not worry about anything, but In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6-7

Orange Park was actually a great place to raise a family; nice schools, parks, and a good church, Ridgeway Baptist. We also found Nemour’s Children’s Hospital in nearby Jacksonville for Megan’s clinic visits.

Megan won a first place trophy at the Spina Bifida 5K Fundraiser!

Some of our favorite places to visit while living in this part of Florida included Green Cove Springs and St. Augustine. Green Cove Springs is an little old town with a couple of restaurants, shady oak trees and a nice playground. St. Augustine is an old beach town with lots of cute shops and restaurants. It was simply beautiful at Christmas 🎄time.

So, just like I predicted the first day I stepped foot into the Jacksonville Delta Air Lines reservation office a year and a half earlier, Delta management announced that they were planning to close several offices over the next few months, and the Jacksonville office was one of those offices. I hate to say, “I told you so, but….”

I put in my bid to transfer to one of three cities to work in Delta Reservations:

• Atlanta, because it was the main headquarters.

• Miami, because it was in Florida.

• And Dallas, because it was in the Bible Belt.

In preparation for the move we gave up our leased home and moved into an apartment nearby on a short term lease. Michelle and Megan both made some new new friends right away which made the move a little bit easier.

Michelle, Megan and their friends at the Orange Park apartment.

Michelle and her friends often hung out in little groups outside our apartment listening to music on boom boxes. One day, just for fun, Harold put a boom box on his shoulder and we walked outside within eyeshot of the kids, turned up the volume and started walking/dancing around to the music. We thought it would make for a good laugh for everyone but it backfired. Michelle was so embarrassed; she started crying and ran down the street away from us! I think this event officially branded us in Michelle’s mind as weird parents. 😳

A month or so after moving to the apartment, we decided we’d better make a weekend visit to Miami, just in case that was going to be our next home. Miami was pretty but it was way too hot and way more crowded than we expected. On the way home from Miami I started to have second thoughts about putting it on my bid.

When we got back home, we found our apartment had been ransacked! Several things had been stolen, including some clothes, a cute little lamp and a set of my mother’s rings. The thief even helped themselves to the food in our pantry! I filled out a police report and resolved I’d never see our stolen items again.

A couple of weeks later, I saw my cute little lamp, now broken, sticking up out of our next door neighbor’s trash sitting outside her door! I called the police to add this information to my original police report. Long story short, the police recovered most of what was stolen, including some things I didn’t even realize were missing. The thief was our next door neighbor’s daughter. She told the police that she came over to our house and unlocked our balcony door right before we went out of town, and climbed over our adjoining balconies and helped herself to our stuff while we were gone. It was a strange experience and it made me sad that a neighbor would do this to us.

After all of that, I was really looking forward to moving. I prayed for God to please send us where He most wanted us to go.

A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Finally, the bid results came in: Bible-Belt here we come!

So after two years in Jacksonville, we were excited to be moving to Lewisville, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, in July of 1993, furniture included! While our two previous moves were voluntary and only allowed us to bring our personal effects, this move included all of our household effects since they were closing the office. A professional mover came and packed everything and drove it by semi-truck to Texas.

Which brings me to my last story about our time in Jacksonville, and the title of this blog. Soon after moving to Orange Park we kept seeing a young man in his late 20’s or early 30’s, walking up and down the main road. He was thin and obviously homeless. I never saw him begging, he was almost always, just walking. I felt sorry for him so I started buying an extra cheeseburger whenever we’d go to McDonalds and then we’d look for him to give it to. I told the girls that we wouldn’t give him money, but a sandwich would be ok. I tried to talk to him a couple of times but he wasn’t much for talking; he was just so very sad. Sometimes we couldn’t find him and so we would just have an extra sandwich. So then I decided it might be better to put together some bags of snacks and bottled water, and keep them in my car to give to him.

Michelle said that the kids at school called him “Johnny Walker” so that’s what we called him. The rumor was, he lost his job, his wife left him, he drank too much, and he became homeless. I don’t know if they named him after the whiskey, “Jonnie Walker” or if it was because he was always walking. I decided I preferred the latter.

To this day, I still wonder about “Johnny Walker,” but out of this experience, God inspired me to start putting together some bags with snacks, water, toiletries, and a gospel tract to give to the homeless. I stock up at the Dollar Store once or twice a year and fill the bags all at once and then keep one in my car, to give away as needed. People nowadays call them “Blessing Bags” but to me they’re my “Johnny Walker” ❤️‍🩹bags.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:4