In this memoir, author Steve Grizzle recounts the story of his perfect life adventure as a preacher, a pilot, and a police officer—the three Ps of his life. He reveals the details of a life lived as an exciting journey, leading him from preaching in the pulpit to traveling the world as a pilot to serving as a police officer. As a man with a true need for speed, Grizzle’s journey has been one of exciting and unforgettable events.
For example, he was almost killed by a pilot who flew Air Force One for a living. He met and worked for the great Sam Walton and encountered numerous celebrities over the course of his various careers. Over the years he has regaled his friends with the stories of his adventures in each of his three careers, who agreed that if they were able to trade places with anyone in the whole world, it would be him.
Sharing stories full of action, inspiration, and adventure, The 3 “P” Man presents a unique and intriguing memoir.
In this memoir, author Steve Grizzle recounts the story of his perfect life adventure as a preacher, a pilot, and a police officer—the three Ps of his life. He reveals the details of a life lived as an exciting journey, leading him from preaching in the pulpit to traveling the world as a pilot to serving as a police officer. As a man with a true need for speed, Grizzle’s journey has been one of exciting and unforgettable events.
For example, he was almost killed by a pilot who flew Air Force One for a living. He met and worked for the great Sam Walton and encountered numerous celebrities over the course of his various careers. Over the years he has regaled his friends with the stories of his adventures in each of his three careers, who agreed that if they were able to trade places with anyone in the whole world, it would be him.
Sharing stories full of action, inspiration, and adventure, The 3 “P” Man presents a unique and intriguing memoir.
The 3 "P" Man: Memoirs of a Perfect Life Adventure: A Preacher, a Pilot, and a Police Officer All in One Person
300
The 3 "P" Man: Memoirs of a Perfect Life Adventure: A Preacher, a Pilot, and a Police Officer All in One Person
300eBook
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Overview
In this memoir, author Steve Grizzle recounts the story of his perfect life adventure as a preacher, a pilot, and a police officer—the three Ps of his life. He reveals the details of a life lived as an exciting journey, leading him from preaching in the pulpit to traveling the world as a pilot to serving as a police officer. As a man with a true need for speed, Grizzle’s journey has been one of exciting and unforgettable events.
For example, he was almost killed by a pilot who flew Air Force One for a living. He met and worked for the great Sam Walton and encountered numerous celebrities over the course of his various careers. Over the years he has regaled his friends with the stories of his adventures in each of his three careers, who agreed that if they were able to trade places with anyone in the whole world, it would be him.
Sharing stories full of action, inspiration, and adventure, The 3 “P” Man presents a unique and intriguing memoir.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781475991277 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 06/24/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 300 |
| File size: | 295 KB |
Read an Excerpt
The 3 "P" Man
By Steve Grizzle
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2013 Steve GrizzleAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-9125-3
CHAPTER 1
What a beginning
My wife grew up in a minister's home. She was able to witness first hand what it was like dealing with people because of her Dad's fifty plus years as a pastor. She always said there were three men she would never marry. First was a preacher, second a pilot, and lastly a police officer. Isn't it wonderful to see firsthand that God has a real sense of humor? You see, she had planned to go to college at McNeese State in Lake Charles, Louisiana. In fact she had a full tuition there and could live at home since she lived in Westlake, a suburb of Lake Charles. It made perfect sense because the doors were opened for that to happen. Just a couple weeks before college was to start, her dad, who pastored a local church, had a group of young men to minister in his church from Southwestern Assemblies of God College from Waxahachie, Texas. While listening to the group sing and talk about the college she got all these little doodads running up and down her spine, and all the sudden she felt she must go to Southwestern. She talks to her dad about her change of heart, so her dad checks with Southwestern office and finds out that she can still register for the fall semester, but he has to get a government loan to pay for her college. He makes the arrangements and in two weeks she finds herself enrolled at a christian college in Texas. As school starts, she makes her way down to the lobby one evening finding other students sitting around the room getting acquainted and a few standing around the grand piano singing. One of the guys standing around the piano was a six foot four inch good looking preacher boy that had enrolled in the bible school at Southwestern. That boy was me. My future wife would fall in love with me, a young preacher boy fixing to change the world for the better. That was strike one.
After we got married on December 20, 1965 I became friends with a guy that was a pilot. He took me up a couple times for local flights and I was hooked! He introduced me to his instructor and, he offered me the opportunity to learn to fly. For four hundred dollars I was guaranteed my ground school, my entire flying, ground school test, and the FAA flying test. Several years later I had a man that befriended me and told me he owned two planes. He owned a little over five thousand acres of farmland, and while he didn't attend the church that I pastored, he and I talked often, and I would fly with him on occasion. One day he said, "Brother Steve, I don't have time to keep my planes up by flying them, and it's hard on them to just sit there and never get started. Would you mind flying my planes, all you want to, and I'll even pay for the gas." I thought to myself that it just wouldn't be Christian to put a man in that kind of bind. This man needed my help and, I guess it would just not be right to refuse to help him. Needless to say, I got my commercial rating and got to fly when I wanted to, and it didn't cost me a dime. Later, I added my instrument, multi-engine, and airline transport pilot ratings. But for my wife, that was strike two.
I made friends with the chief of police and sheriff when I moved to Muldrow, Oklahoma. Several times, the sheriff called and asked me to fly one of his deputies around looking for marijuana, or an escaped prisoner, or a lost person. One day I was asked if I would consider becoming a reserve officer. I thought about it for a while and finally said yes. But a couple years into that relationship, the sheriff that had asked me to be a reserve officer got voted out of office. I was visiting with the chief of police in Muldrow one day, and he asked me to join his team so I agreed to work for Muldrow and went to the police academy. After several years of being a reserve I was asked to be part time and get paid for my work. So now I go from a reserve's silver badge, to a paid officers' gold badge. My poor wife; that was strike three.
You see God actually does have a sense of humor. My wife got to marry not just one of the people she said she would never marry, but she got all three. I've been called the three p's for several years. Actually I have added a fourth p because my grandchildren call me Poppy (papa). All four p's have provided very exciting times in my life. People have told me they wished they could have had my life because I've seen so much of the world and had so much excitement. Yes, I have, and I want to share a few of these adventures with you. Stories from a man that doesn't have a PhD behind his name, but a ppp. I'm the ppp or the 3 "p" man.
CHAPTER 2
A log cabin or a pigpen
November 13, 1945, in Pocola, Oklahoma, on the north side of backbone mountain there stood a little one-room log cabin on a dirt country road that ran east and west. The décor was very simple and could best be described as early frontier. There was a bed, a wood stove that was for both heating and cooking and not much else. There was no bathroom so the only thing available was an outhouse that was located outside and away from the log living structure. But outhouses were not that uncommon in those days. Although there were a few neighbors beginning to build indoor toilets, it wasn't happening here. Money was hard to come by. The residents here had worked hard all their lives. The dad had quit school in the second grade, saved 300 dollars by picking cotton and strawberries, bought and owned his own tire recapping shop. All by the time he was 13 years of age. Now here they are. The dad had just turned 19 years old just 6 days earlier, and the wife was 17 years old, and inside the one room log cabin with an old country doctor doing everything he knew to help the mom with the birth, but nothing worked. I forgot to mention there was one more person there. Granny was a mid-wife, my granny, and she was there watching every move the doctor made. But there was trouble in the cabin that day.
When I finally came out to meet the big ole world, I would not breathe for the doctor. He tried everything he knew but nothing worked, so after a time of working on me he gave up, expressed his sorrow for them and left. But Granny had been warming some water on the wood stove so when the doctor left she had a pan of warm water, a pan of cold water, and a warm oven going. She grabbed me up and put me in the warm water, then the cold water and worked with me till she shocked me into breathing. She then placed me in the door of the oven and kept me warm, which became my own country incubator. I'm sure glad granny was more stubborn than the little old country doctor. She held me in her arms all night to make sure I kept breathing. From that time on, there was always a special relationship between granny and me. We had that special relationship until the day she died at the ripe age of 94 years of age. Even then our relationship was special. The family had been called to the bedside of granny because she was closer to the next world than she was to this one. I was a young preacher and pilot by then, but I was there in that room beside my granny. The hospital room was full of family and they were all talking. Frankly it was noisy in the room with no one paying attention to granny who lay there in a coma. But I noticed her. I stepped nearer to her and stood at her side. After a few moments I said "granny, its ok. We know Jesus loves us don't we." All the sudden she raised her arm and with her little scrawny hands she grabbed my arm and squeezed my hand. The room became instantly quiet and everyone watched granny holding my hand. Then she turned loose of my hand and it wasn't long before she met Jesus in person.
One time, before granny's death, I had brought my two children over to see my special granny. As we drove by the place where once stood a little one-room log cabin, there stood a pig pin with a couple hogs in the pin. I said, "kids that is where I was born." My son said, "dad you were born in a pig pin?" I said "no, when I was born, there was a one room log cabin here". For years the story would change from my dad was born in a pig pin, to dad was born in a one-room log cabin like Abraham Lincoln.
If I could have picked out my own parents, I would have picked out the ones I got. But everyone tells me that my dad was a rascal when he was young. He would travel with a case of beer in his vehicle and was a chain smoker. My mother was the conservative one and did not smoke or drink, but would attend church every time the doors were open. One night in September, 1946, there was a meteor shower that made it appear like all the stars were falling. It frightened my dad so badly that he cried out to God to forgive him. He thought the world was coming to an end that night. Needless to say the world didn't end that night, but my dad's wild ways did. The next time the doors of the church were opened, my dad was there. He made his way down to the alter, and now sixty-seven years later, he is still in church every time the doors are opened. In fact, those years that I pastored, I couldn't get him to spend a weekend with me because he had to get back to his own church. But that's ok too, because I would rather have him a fanatic Christian and faithful to his church than a drunk any time.
CHAPTER 3
Shot to death or scared to death
When I was about thirteen years old, there was an earth-shattering event that took place in our family that still affects me today. My dad loved to hunt. It didn't matter if it was big game or small game, he loved to go out in the woods and pin his skills against the wild beast of the forest. He had gone squirrel hunting with Don Pilgrim, a friend of his that also owned his own business. They had driven dads' 1948 Willis Jeep to the White Rock Mountains for this particular hunt. When they arrived in the mountains, dad decided to turn down this little trail, drive down the mountain a ways and hunt on the mountainside. They had driven down the trail a ways when they came across a man in a suit lying across the trail. They stopped to check on him and discovered the man had just recently been shot, and he was dead. They now began to notice the tracks on the trail they were on. There had been a car that had come down the trail they were on and the tracks continued down the mountain trail. Dad knew this trail well and told Don that this trail does not continue, but it dead ends down the mountain, which means that the killers are not far from them. They decided to get back into the Jeep and drive about two miles around the mountain to a ranger tower and call the sheriff's department. They called the sheriff to inform him of their findings, and that they believed the killers were close by. The sheriff told them to go back and guard the trail and not let anyone in or out of the trail until he got there. They drove the little Jeep back to the trail and parked the Jeep so the trail was blocked. They had already talked about what to do if the killers came back up the trail while they were there, so they got their guns ready and prepared for a possible confrontation. They began to look at the tracks again, and the hair on the back of their necks began to rise up. There was their set of Jeep tracks going in and back out of the trail. Then they saw the set of car tracks going into the trail just like they noticed the first time. But now there was another set of car tracks coming out of the trail over the top of their tracks. While they were gone to call the sheriff, the killers had come back out of the trail. The killers figured that no one would find the man for months or years, but they were wrong. Someone had found him before they could turn around and leave the mountain setting. Dad wondered if the killers had noticed both sets of car tracks on the trail, and if they would come back. So he and Don now positioned themselves to cover the trail and the dirty mountain road. They liked to start hunting right at daylight, but by the time they had found the man, called for the sheriff, and waited until the sheriff arrived it was already after 0900. They were at the crime scene all day helping the sheriff search the area and look for clues along the little trail. Before they knew it, the day was gone and it was getting dark. Dad was afraid that mom would get worried with him being so late, so he asked the sheriff to radio his office and tell dispatch that Carl Grizzle had found a dead man and would be a little late getting home. So the sheriff asked dispatch to advise mom of dad's delay.
The old man that was working dispatch must have had hearing problems, or he wasn't paying attention to details, because when he calls mom to deliver this important message he somehow confuses the message. As the phone rings, mom picks it up, and I'm standing a few feet away. Moms lip begins to quiver and tears swell up in her eyes and I knew it was bad news. Fifty-four years later when I think of that evening, I have to fight to keep back the tears. Dad would not be coming home again ... ever. The dispatcher asked mom if her husband's name was Carl Grizzle. She said yes, it is. He said he hated to inform her, but a man had found Carl Grizzle dead in the White Rock Mountains, and the sheriff had asked him to call and notify her. Mom knew that dad had gone to White Rock to hunt, and she had no reason to doubt the professionalism of a dispatch officer with the sheriff's department.
After a few minutes, to collect her thoughts, and she called the church to see if she could catch our pastor. It just so happened that the church was holding a worker's conference that night so not only was the pastor there, but a lot of the church people. Someone answered the phone and mom explained to them what had happened and asked them to please inform the pastor. When that person told the pastor the news, he informed the church people of the events, and within thirty minutes, the pastor and church people began to flood our house. You could not find a parking place within a block of our house, and that little house was absolutely packed with people. People from the church had made phone calls to others in the church family, and I've been told there were scores of people waiting at the hospital for them to bring in dad's body. After many, many hours our house was still packed, even though it was almost ten p.m. at night. We had several hours to let it sink into our minds that dad was in heaven, and we would have to carry on without him. We had no idea that at that very moment coming down the road was a little 1948 Willis Jeep coming home.
Dad had dropped Don off at his house and was driving up to our house when he noticed all the cars parked up and down the street. When he got to our house, the yard was full of cars, and it dawned on him that something must have happened to one of us. He left the Jeep in the roadway because there was no parking place in the yard. As he ran for the house, he became more fearful that something had happened to his little family. When dad came through that front door, it was like seeing a ghost, but mom ran into his arms and started crying again, unable to speak. We told him that everyone was all right, that the pastor and the people were there for him, not us. When things settled down a little, the pastor talked to the people that were gathered, and although I don't remember everything he said in detail, I do remember him saying, "we don't understand why these things happen, but it reminds us how important it is to know Jesus in a personal relationship, and to have a church family to fall back on." By the time I was thirteen, I had experienced my dads' death, his resurrection, and a whole new appreciation for family, both immediate and church. Recently he turned eighty-six years old, and he's still going strong. He is still my pal, my best friend, and my dad. We still have a great personal relationship with Jesus Christ, with each other, and a fantastic church family. Experiences like that stay with you for a life time, and what helps to keep you focused on what is important and what is not.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The 3 "P" Man by Steve Grizzle. Copyright © 2013 Steve Grizzle. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc..
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