So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone… – Galatians 6:9

Back in 1976, in late February, I flew from Bozeman Montana (25 below zero) to Daytona Beach (85 when I landed) by way of Salt Lake City and Atlanta.

Linda Parson – “L.P.” – (we had become friends touring Europe in 1975) met me at the airport and we drove out to her parents’ home in the countryside a couple of miles south of DeLand.

Harold and Rabel Parson lived on a broad spread of cattle land they called “Echo Ranch.” The next day I woke up, stretched, and made my way out onto the porch. The following is an excerpt from my memoir:

I remember the day in every detail. It is a gorgeous Central Florida early spring morning and I am sitting on the back porch of Harold and Rabel Parson’s comfortable home on Echo Ranch, sipping an extra cup of coffee and looking out over the pastures where several cows wander aimlessly.

The Parsons are likely the most genuine and congenial people I have met thus far in my life. Harold is a retired FBI agent and Rabel works as a teacher and a church organist. They live just outside of DeLand, volunteer tirelessly in the community, love their Presbyterian church and are possibly the local university’s most consistent and diehard boosters.

The family golden retriever, Brandy, has just bounded up from the ancient original farmhouse and Linda is not far behind. They join me on the porch.

Harold is already somewhere on the property beating nails into a fencepost. Rabel comes out from the kitchen where she has just finished feeding me bacon, scrambled eggs, hash brown potatoes and buttermilk biscuits with homemade jam. She shoves another biscuit into my hand and it is stuffed with bacon and scrambled eggs.

“You don’t need to go hungry,” she smiles.

“No, I don’t think that’s likely to happen!” I mumble, my mouth already too full.

Fortunately I am still nineteen and have a metabolism designed to eat mass quantities. Also it turns out I have been waiting, unknowingly, my entire life to discover fine Southern cuisine.

Echo Ranch became my sanctuary when I enrolled at Stetson that fall. I helped Harold around the farm some but mostly the Parsons took care of me.

During this past weekend’s soccer reunion I stayed out in the old farmhouse where my friend Linda and her husband Mike live to this day. The old place is still a sanctuary and being there fed my soul deeply.

A tree farm has replaced the cows in the front pasture, but what really holds Echo Ranch together is the love and the stories of generosity and kindness and encouragement. Stories that are not only still being told but still being lived.

I think it was fitting that I pulled out and headed home on All Saints Day. We may be Protestant but we have our fair share of saints. Harold and Rabel are two of the most qualified… and their daughter Linda is not far behind.

Election Day:

So why is this an election day story? Because this is a huge part of how I fell in love with America.

I fell in love with the wide open expansive generosity of good people in a rich land that seemed to be flowing with promise and plenty.

When we vote for freedom, and goodness, and respect for our constitution and the institutions that it created we are voting for the lives and witness of folk like Harold and Rabel.

This is what Echo Ranch spoke to me this weekend, an oasis of goodness in a world where what is important is too often forgotten.

Peace – in every way – DEREK