A Word of Thanks

I want to thank Brother Randy Johnson, pastor of the Sovereign Grace Missionary Baptist Church in Wake Village, TX., for so kindly creating and affording me (my church) this site.. I have found the old adage, “Where there is a will thee is a way,” to most often be true. I heard him say he had built web sites and I had been thinking of doing this for my church. I contacted him and he graciously offered to build a sub-domain site for us. We are greatly indebted to him and his church.

Letter of Introduction
Written 11/03/05 by H.C. Mc Swain

I know there are numerous sites maintained by much better men than I. I cannot best them nor do I want to. I would like to accomplish at least three things: We are asking for some financial help (we do not need much), I will offer articles, sermons and perhaps other worthy and interesting items, perhaps things of interest from the Net, on our site, and it will afford the church a little greater influence. However, I am not trying to sell anything.

Some information about our church. It is the Naborton Baptist Church. It is located some eight miles east of Mansfield, LA. It is off highway 3248, just two miles west of I-49, in a small area called Naborton. Though we are not exactly located in Mansfield, due to the 911 emergency system, we were assigned a Mansfield address, which is The Naborton Baptist Church, 195 Producers Ave., Mansfield, LA 71052.

We are a very small congregation of six members. The church has been here for over forty years. In years past, it was more prosperous than now. Due to a community that has diminished in population (it was tied to the oil industry and it has moved out), it has also become smaller in number.

Our (the church’s) income is limited. We average between five and six hundred dollars a month. We don’t owe any money. However, current expenses are running a little more than our income. We have cut to the bone. My salary is one hundred twenty five dollars a week. (I also am on Social Security.) I recently took a cut in pay. With the exception of one member, all are on retirement or disability. Most of the members tithe. We hope to maintain the church at least until I become disabled or die. (I am eighty years old.) But even if we don’t receive any response to this financial appeal, we can maintain the church for some time. The only place we can cut expenses anymore is my salary. If I have to do that I will. If anyone wishes to contribute, please make any contribution out to the Naborton Baptist Church (not to me), as I am not soliciting for myself personally. However, if you communicate with the church or me for that matter, by snail mail or email, I will answer you in some manner.

As to what the church stands for, we are an old line Sovereign Grace type. We believe in closed communion, wine and unleavened bread for the Supper, the local church only (no universal church), we use the KJV version of the Bible, only two ordinances baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

A few words about me. My name is Harold Mc Swain. I was born in Ft. Myers, Florida in 1925. At the beginning of my ministry in 1950, I served mostly in Florida. Eventually, I went to the foreign mission field (Peru). I served there for seven years. (I will post my article on this experience at some time in the future.) I have been here since 1991. We live on church property in a house trailer. I am not in debt of any kind. My wife and I are very good managers of what few assets we have. We are not very self-indulgent. Once in a while we do drive to Shreveport (about 40 miles north of here) to shop and we do indulge ourselves in a meal at a restaurant. We do this less now that gasoline prices are so out of reason. Our children do help us some (we have five children, four boys, one girl). I did not think about retirement in my youth. I did not really prepare for old age, as I did not think I would live anywhere near as long as I have. That was foolish on my part.

My health. At the present time my wife and I are mobile. We drive. We are lucid but my memory is slightly diminished. We live by ourselves (our children are scattered and live in Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, and I do maintain a good relationship with all of them). We have been married for 58 years. I had cancer of the colon in December of 2000. I have to wear a pouch. We do have Medicare, which, due to the taxpayers’ generosity, we don’t have to pay much for health problems. (Medicare even provides my pouches.) At the present time, we are not on any medications, though we do ingest numerous vitamins and minerals and are careful as to what we put in our stomachs.

Though I have been many places and done many things, I do not consider myself an accomplished person by any stretch of the imagination. It is enough to say I have many interests. One of the worst enemies old folks have is that of boredom. Therefore, I am interested in computers, writing, sacred music (no contemporary music), sermon preparation and preaching, current events, world events, politics, sports, health foods and good health habits. I seldom get bored. I also try to exercise every day.

At the beginning, I will post only a few of all the things I have written and add to the site at least once a month. Such as a family history (this is very voluminous and some of the things I have in this document will be of interest, even though you don’t know any of the people therein). I have written of many different experiences and interesting people I have known along the way life. Some of my sermons have been published in The Baptist Examiner, at least one article on music, many years ago in the BBB, and more recently, in The Landmark Baptist. (There are some thirty or so of these articles about my experiences, family history, etc.) Some of these things are amusing, some are very serious, some are nostalgic, some are sad. Hopefully, none will be boring. We do hope to hear from you. Sincerely, H.C. Mc Swain

A Loss of Confidence
By HCM Aug 1982
Written for Comp. I class
Based on an actual experience in 1973.

It was about 2 am in the morning. The knock was quite persistent and loud. I really did not want to get out of bed. Afterwards I wished I had not. I finally answered the door.

The person that greeted me was the local sheriff. He had some bad news. The story went something like this. The local police and the SID had been following my son David, along with some other kids (they were all teenagers), for a number of days and had decided to arrest then on drug charges. A chase had followed. The whole story sounded like a bad comedy.

In the chase, the kids had eluded the police and the police had lost a car. The kids had taken some shots at the police. All in all, the police were very excited and angry. It looked like bad trouble for all involved.

The kids had been cruising along on the Beach Road and the police decided to give chase. The kids, who were in a truck, took off to the nearby woods and the police, who were in patrol car, followed them. Of course the car was no match for the kids in a truck and the kids knew the woods better than the police. The kids had bumped the police car (on purpose according to the police) and caused the police to hit a stump. The car was totaled. The kids had escaped. It looked to me like the police were really getting their jollies that night chasing the kids. Afterwards, I found out the police were also lying more than they told the truth.

At this point I did not know what to do. I certainly did not know where David was. It was about 2:30 am by then, and I did not think I could sleep. But there was nothing to do but go back to bed and wait until daylight.

Later at about 7 am, we received a call from a man we knew who said the kids were at his house and they were going to give themselves up. A few hours later, we went to the police station in Bonita to see David before they took him away. He seemed to be in a good frame of mind. After a while they took him to the county jail in Ft. Myers, Fla. Now what to do next was the big problem I had to deal with.

I had never had any dealings with the law. I have had one traffic ticket in my life and never needed a lawyer for anything other than the adoption process that was required when we adopted our daughter. But it seemed to me the police had the goods, so as to speak, on the boys. After all they were the good guys and the boys were the bad guys.

The police had charged my son with several things one of which was a felony. If convicted, he could serve time in the pen. It seemed to me this was a strong possibility. What was I to do?

The obvious answer was, of course, to get a lawyer. A friend recommended a certain lawyer in Naples, a town some 13 miles to the south of Bonita. My friend told me this man had, as he put it, “connections.” He had been a county judge at one time and knew everybody of any importance in the judicial system. But silly me, I thought if a man is guilty of a crime, he should be prosecuted. Connections should have no place in judging a case. I found out to my great disappointment just how wrong I was. I found out truth and justice is at the bottom of the list for both the judicial system and the police.

After consulting with the lawyer, he read out of a law book and told me the law was clear that the police were way off base and could charge David with only one of the several things they were charging him with. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Would the police practice lies and deceit? Would they charge someone with something they knew could not be substantiated? After all, they were the good guys, the white knights, and our saviors. Well I was about to get a good dose of reality.

In the meantime, the police told me I could pick up David’s truck. It has been impounded. Remember, they had told me that the truck had hit them and caused the to police car to wreck. I expected to find a truck that was wrecked or at best, bent up to some degree. To my complete surprise, it did not have one scratch on it! Surely, somebody had made a bad mistake.

I asked the keeper of the garage, where the truck was impounded, if the truck had been wrecked. He answered in the negative. My faith in the police had received another severe blow.

Upon arriving back home, I asked the paint and body man who had a paint shop next door to me, to inspect the truck for any signs of a collision. He said it had not been touched. I also asked him if he was willing to get on the witness stand and swear to that. He said, “Yes.”

By this time I was more than a little suspicious the police were not playing fair. In fact, it was to turn out the police just plain lied. I found out why later. They did not want to make their insurance company pay for their mistake. So they decided to try and make our company pay for their foolish ways. I suppose they thought we were ignorant and would not contest them. Not only were they deceptive, they were stupid. I also found out the driver of the chase car had wrecked at least one other car. He should not have been on the force.

Of course, one has to remember the kids were less than justified in what they did. They had made fools out of the police. They had baited the police. But it was a matter of the pot calling the kettle black. The big difference between kids and adults is judgment. That night the cops reverted back to being kids in as far as their judgment was concerned. All they had to do was to go to the kids’ houses the next day and arrest them, as they would return home sooner or later. In the case of David, I would have turned him in myself.

The police had originally started out on a drug bust they told me. But no drugs were ever found. Of course the kids had time to get rid of the drugs if they had them. So more and more, it looked like the police were on a fishing trip. They had charged David with causing an accident (it turned out he was not even driving the truck) and several other things, some of which were of a felonious nature. His bail was set at $1,800.

I was very angry and confused at this point. I decided to let David sit it out in jail to teach him a lesson. But my cousin came to me and told me that he was in the same cell with seasoned criminals and I should not let him stay there. So I decided to try and make the bail. I had to put up $200.00. I raised the money and got him out.

The incident made the front page of the Ft. Myers News Press. The reporter told how the kids were on drugs, and had given the cops the slip, and shot at the police (it came out later they never had a gun), and all the sensationalism that always goes along with such stories. Our name was mud.

David told me they knew all along the cops were trailing them and they did this as a lark, just to make fools out of the police. I more or less believed him after looking at the facts. Of course I did not sympathize with the kids either. There were no winners here. But it is easy to see why the police have lost some of their credibility. They do, at times, lie and charge people with things they know will not stick. They do this for many reasons. It is a little game they all play. I do not advocate we do away with the police but certainly the driver of the chase car had no business driving the car or perhaps even being a cop. He exercised very poor judgment. However, there is a factor that most don’t know about, that is the excitement of a chase.

Some time later, while at the station getting David out of jail, I overheard the on-duty police talking about a party they had the night before. They were joking about getting drunk and just having a good old time, as they put it. If someone else did that, they would have arrested him. After all, alcohol is a drug. Again, I lost a little more confidence in the police. (Was I expecting too much?)

After consulting with the lawyer about his fee, I decided to get a public defender. After telling him our story, he told us plainly that the police could not do anything other than charge David with obscenity. It carried a fine of $25.00 He advised him (me) to pay the fine and forget it. It was his word against the cop and the judge would side with the cop.

On the day of the trial, the public defender and the prosecuting attorney met in the hallway and decided the case then and there. That shook me too. I heard them do this. I thought the judge decided cases. I was getting an education.

The public defender told the prosecuting attorney, in my presence, the laws of the state of Florida held the driver of the vehicle liable, not the owner of the vehicle, and my son was not driving the truck, so he could not be charged. So the case against him was dropped but not before it cost us $200.00 and our good name. I can see why so many lawsuits are brought against the police. They can do some shoddy work sometimes.

The police’s insurance company wrote me a letter saying I had to pay for the wrecked car. I got my insurance representative to depose the paint and body man. He told me they were barking up the wrong tree. We would not have to pay anything. I never heard another word from them.

So my conclusions were that the police were wrong and lied to cover up their mistakes. Often times, lawyers decide cases and not the judges. Kids do crazy things. The reporter did not want to know the truth. The insurance company would lie to get money from innocent people even though it did not deserve it. There were no winners in such cases.

But I did get an education of sorts. It was not one I delighted in. I remembered something Will Rogers, the famous philosopher and comedian said: “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.”

After moving to Arkansas in 1973, David got his life in order, and is now married and in business for himself in El Dorado, Arkansas.