My Preacher Mid McKnight flew Navy airplanes in World War II. After the war, Mid farmed near Hale Center located on the Texas plains near Lubbock. He planted wheat, but a hailstorm destroyed his crop just before harvesting. That’s when he started flying old Navy planes again. And why he became my preacher.
Some enterprising ‘cloud-seeding’ fellow hired Mid to fly an old Navy plane into storm clouds, baskets mounted on the wings to catch hail samples. Depending on the size of the hailstones at a calculated altitude, chemicals would then be dropped on the clouds to break up the hailstones.
Chemical cloud-seeding worked. Entrepreneur bought another second-hand Navy plane. Paid Mid to go to St. Louis and fly the plane back to Lubbock. When the engine quit, Mid crash-landed. The plane upended in a farmer’s field. Mid smelled gasoline and feared a fire would ensue.
Mid said that’s when he promised the Lord he would do His bidding if he lived. Several pulpits later, Mid became my preacher and often delivered a sermon quip that didn’t speak well for my 1960s television enterprise.
I was managing a CBS television station in West Texas. And several Sundays I heard Mid implore his parishioners to give the Church money they would spend on TV. Mid often added, “My family doesn’t even own a TV set.”
My daughter Cynthia spent a weekend visiting a McKnight daughter on the small farm Mid bought outside town. She returned with great envy. The four McKnight children had four Shetland ponies.
As I left the next Sunday’s sermon, I waited my turn to commend his sermon. Then added a warning.
Mid, the next time you tell us you don’t even own a TV set, I’m going to stand up and yell…’but you’ve got four Shetland ponies.’
Never heard the ‘no TV’ sermon again. Did hear one of the churchgoers gave a TV set to the McKnight family.
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