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"Sending a Child to College
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One Jar at a Time"
"God guard me from those thoughts
Men think in the mind alone
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in the marrow-bone."
William Butler Yeats
Last December I was in
the office of John Poepl, president of Vermillion Bank in
Vermillion, Minnesota, when he said, "I bought some cases
of jars of barbeque sauce to give as Christmas gifts. A preacher
on the east side of St. Paul makes the sauce and sells it
to benefit kids. Maybe you'd like to write about him." With
that Poepl invited me to the world of Pastor Luches G. Hamilton,
a man of big dreams backed up by dedication, determination,
and a belly full of fire.
With prime barbeque season
on the way, I gave Pastor Hamilton a call to ask if I could
pay him a visit. He said he was up to his ears in sauce production
problems and that he'd call me back when things settled down,
which he did when they did. That's how, on a pleasant summer
day, I came to be sitting in his modest office at St. John's
Church, a Church of God and Christ, at 1154 E. 7th Street,
not far from downtown St. Paul.
There I heard about how
Hamilton and his nine brothers and sisters grew up on their
small farm in Camden, Arkansas, about 100 miles southwest
of Little Rock. Young Luches Jr. learned to work on the farm
as a child and then worked at various jobs in the Camden area
after his father died, when Luches was 12. By the time he
was in his late teens, Hamilton, the young man, could see
he was going to have to get more serious about making money,
so he went to Little Rock to work at his sister's restaurant,
the Hazel Ross Café. That's where he learned to cook.
"I've seen a lot," said
Pastor Hamilton, as he talked about his motivation for dedicating
his life to God and community. His face seemed to say he could
fill a whole day with sad, true stories of greed and indifference,
even before he got to the ones of hate and violence. "As a
child my mother was cut on a broken window as she ran from
a burning church where a minister had been teaching her and
other black children to read.
The Klan had set the place
on fire."
But Hamilton doesn't have
a lot of time to lament his childhood or slip into memories
of the trouble he's known. A man of clear and ambitious vision,
he sees that today we can do better by children than we've
done in the past. With his sleeves rolled up whether he's
dressed like a minister or a chef, Pastor Luches G. Hamilton
is marching into the hope and the bog of making things better
one jar of sauce, one rack or ribs, one young person at a
time. His philosophy and focus have simmered and deepened
with his life experiences.
"For three years I owned
and operated Hamilton's Old Style Barbeque on Selby Avenue
in St. Paul. At that time our family lived in east St. Paul.
I wanted us to move to Woodbury, because I thought that would
be a better place to raise our children, and we did move.
I found out that the kids in Woodbury are just like the kids
in east St. Paul.
"We need to think of more
positive things for young people to do. Too many of them are
buying more than they need - on credit, sleeping their days
away, spending long hours on the computer and watching a lot
of TV. They're getting into pornography. That's a good way
to learn how to be a bum, to turn to drugs or to suicide.
"On the other end we have
older folks sitting in nursing homes with nothing to do. We're
wasting all that knowledge and wisdom. We don't have to do
that. I feel we need to focus on kids and come together to
help meet the needs of young people who are crying out and
not being heard."
Pastor Luches Hamilton
seems to hear that crying loud and clear. I asked him if he's
read The Measure of Our Success, by Marian Wright Edelman,
director of the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C.,
because she hears the crying too. He said he hasn't read the
book, but I'm sure he could write his own powerful version
of Edelman's treatise on integrity, human potential and community.
Not right now, though. He's too busy living it.
When Hamilton isn't working
on church business he's producing, selling and promoting Pastor
Hamilton's Old Style Barbeque Sauce. When the weather's warm,
as it is now, he's extra busy on Fridays. That's when he fires
up his big, black grill and by noon is serving barbeque dinners
complete with great potato salad and baked beans - selling
them and jars of sauce on the street in front of St. John's
Church.
Pastor Hamilton needs
to make a lot of sales to turn his plans into reality. The
barbeque profits help students get to college. Before they
leave home they need to develop a work ethic and recognize
the importance of community service. Hamilton's given a lot
of thought to those needs also.
Every day he looks out
his church office window across E. 7th Street at an old, abandoned
business site, the Globe Building Materials, Inc., complex.
He imagines the land there free of tar contamination and the
buildings torn down or rehabbed to make a center for young
folks to use, a place the likes of which no one in these parts
has ever seen. Come to think of it, where could anyone go
to find a popular, gospel dance club and community center
where kids like those in east ST. Paul, like those in Woodbury,
young folks anywhere, would gather?
"I imagine a safe place,
with plenty of security and no smoking, drugs or alcohol,"
said Hamilton. "Youngsters will pretty much run the place.
We will have a woodshop, a kitchen for food service, an arts
and crafts studio and a traveling gospel choir. Business minded
young folks will work on the finances. It will be a place
where kids can reach other kids and adults can share their
experience and hope. We will work with parents and the schools
to make it all happen."
With a growing crew of
workers who believe in his sauce and his dream, and with faith,
young folks and barbeque in his native Arkansas bones, Pastor
Luches G. Hamilton is on the move. The small business loan
L. Hamilton Enterprises secured through Vermillion Bank has
been paid in full, the newly appointed commercial kitchen
where the sauce is made gleams and hums with activity, and
the "Old Style" barbeque aroma wafts around the St. John's
Church neighborhood, especially on Friday afternoons. And,
no small thing, Pastor Hamilton's sauce can be purchased at
Cub and Kowalski's grocery stores, and also through Simon
Delivers.
How is the pastor of a
smallish church on a busy St. Paul street in a working class
neighborhood going to build an impressive range of services
and facilities for young people? Pastor Luches G. Hamilton
believes that with a lot of work and faith, God will make
a way. A growing number of well wishers and supporters look
forward to the reality of the whole touching, bighearted operation.
One day at a time, one jar of sauce at a time.
To Pastor Hamilton and
company, Godspeed.
Pam Keul. Turtle River
Press
September 2003
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