Grandma Henke

Gene, Gene the Jelly Bean … I heard my kids chanting it over and over through my kitchen window that opened to the back yard. At the time it sounded innocent enough but later I learned the details. They were singing it at the man who rented the garage and hydraulic car lift in our back lot to run his Auto Body Shop. Why? Because he told on them when they got into his car and ate a bunch of Hostess Twinkies and Cupcakes he had in a sack of groceries.

Well, of course, the kids had to pay for the treats they’d swiped but it was even harder to get after them for the sing/song lyrics they’d come up with to get even when in my mind a jelly bean was a nicer thing than I would have used, and here’s why.

We’d barely bought our brand new Volkswagen Bus when we pulled up to a four way stop sign and Gene came down the road on our left in his big tow truck towing a huge engine that hung from a thick chain on the back. He made a right turn onto our road and the engine, that should have been tied securely, swung out in a wide arch and hit the corner of the front windshield and ripped along the entire left side of our bus, tearing out the windows and some of the framework. Miraculously Lynn and the children sitting on that side of the car weren’t seriously hurt.

Gene was genuinely sorry and since he did auto body work for a living he immediately offered to fix it. (I thought it was a rather dramatic way for him to drum up business). So our car sat in the back lot behind our home with the other wrecked cars waiting for Gene to make it as good as new. It waited, and waited, and waited. Gene said it was because he had to send for two new panels and the front door.

Okay, so here’s the part that would have made me join the kids in chanting over the back fence. The car looked fine when it was finished and we would have been very satisfied with the work except for one thing. We could tell he hadn’t replaced the paneling or the door and he was billing our insurance company for it. Lynn refused to sign the papers and Gene told him he’d already talked to the Insurance Company and told them he’d had to replace the panels so if Lynn would sign he’d split the profit with him. In other words, he was trying to cheat the insurance company.

Lynn refused to sign the papers and refused the $750.00 he was offered, which was a good sized chunk of money back then. In fact, Lynn told Gene he had a month to find a new location for his body-work business because he didn’t want his name linked to anyone who would run a dishonest business.

I know it’s done all the time … people trying to get all they can from insurance claims even if it means lying about the facts … but that doesn’t make it right.  I’m grateful I married a man of integrity instead of a jelly bean.

Proverbs 20:7 “The just man walketh in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.”