Blog 3875 – 07.02.2026

Love, Me

The fifth grade was a big year for me. My family moved to East Lake in Chattanooga, I was in Miss Lane’s fifth grade class at Clifton Hills Elementary where in addition to the young and lovely Miss Lane I met three children my own age who all three lived within a couple of blocks from my family’s new abode. Those three dear hearts were in alphabetical order Ric(Butch Chambers), Don Price, and Janet Rider. The three were very different, yet each in their own way would help me to discover the greatest love of all. The one love without which all the others is impossible.

Butch, as he was known in the fifth grade, was the bravest and most adventurous boy I had ever met. He encouraged me to get into Scouting. He and his  older brother Mike both went on to be Eagle Scouts, took ROTC high school and in college and were officers in the U.S. Army. I was only a Boy Scout for one year, never made the rank of First Class because even after Red Cross Swimming classes and Boy Scout swimming classes I could not earn the swimming merit badge which was a requirement for First Class. I did take Junior ROTC in high school but only for two years. After high school I joined the Army and made it to the rank of Spec 5/ E-5 while serving a year in South Vietnam.

Don Price was a shy boy like myself, but he and I hung out a lot and were I think an encouragement to one another. We both tried to be poets, and went to church together. We played tennis together. Though we went to different high schools we stayed friends into young adulthood.

Janet Rider was a pretty and very popular girl. She had the skinned knees to prove from so many falls being chased by the boys at recess. We also attended the same Junior High and High Schools. In Eighth Grade at East Lake Junior High I took a typing course and in class when I was supposed to be typing exercises to improve my typing speed and accuracy I typed love poems to Jan signed “Your Secret Admirer and slipped them into her locker. 

Jan was not impressed by typing nor my poetry, she did however shared them with a girl who lived across the street from her, Becky. I never kissed Jan though I idolized her. During the summer after Ninth Grade I did kiss Becky and she became my first real girlfriend. The trouble with idols is they cannot love you back.

I like to think of these daily blogs as love notes put into bottles and cast into sea hoping that someone will find them and be encouraged. I believe we are all looking for love. When we find love reciprocated it is so amazing and wonderful. I often quote what I believe are the best words attributed to Jesus in his great commandment to love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Most folks tend to emphasize the first and second but I think that the “as you love yourself” is the real lesson. Finding out Who and Whose we truly are is the great secret, the greatest love of all. 

The angels in our lives are there to guide us to this discovery.

Your friend and fellow travelers,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18Le96bIzhrmgKoKX5kP_U21dPd7XhULC/view?usp=drivesdk

Love, Me