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Herb Brinks

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Mixed Marriages

Ma knew that I often walked with friends from Ryerson on Sundays. But after I had been gone on a particularly snowy day for over two hours she quizzed me rather pointedly. As I came through the back door, red-cheeked and rubbing my cold hands together, she said, "Where on earth could you have been walking? It's a blizzard out there!" "We stopped at Rachel's house," I answered nonchalantly. "Rachel? Rachel who? And who else?" "Rachel Cadiz. I've mentioned her…
Herb Brinks
December 16, 2006
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Speed

Louie's 1939 Ford with its teardrop design and V-8 engine really kicked gravel. But everyone knew that Louie had earned his nickname "Speed" from roller skating, not from his fast car. At fifteen and a year short of his Illinois driver's license, Burt Kley envied Louie intensely. He had everything--a car, a showman's reputation with a matching nickname, and a gorgeous skating partner who mirrored perfectly his rolling, bobbing, weaving dance across the sluggish current of once-a-week skaters like Burt.…
Herb Brinks
February 15, 2006
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The Plain Truth

They chuckled softly and wagged their heads remembering the times they'd been converted--gone to the front. Ed went three times; Junior only once. He'd tried time and again, but he was only eleven years old and they didn't take his raised hand seriously. Of course, he didn't wave it around, like in school to get the teacher's attention. Church was too serious for that. Perhaps they didn't see his small arm and hand, bent up at the elbow. But they…
Herb Brinks
April 16, 2004
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The Icon

When Papa's widow, Della Kley, died in 1966, her estate's inventory resembled a Salvation Army Store--cheap stuffed furniture not worth recovering, kitchen appliances long outdated and chipped remnants of a Sears Roebuck dinnerware set. Della saved Papa's Bible, a leather-bound Scofield edition, several of his favorite gospel tracts and the remainders of the moderately priced jewelry he'd given her during their courtship near the turn of the last century. Everything suggested the life and times of a poor Protestant widow,…
Herb Brinks
February 15, 2003