WARMLY REMEMBERING CLIFF GRINDROD

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This morning, I was shocked to learn that Cliff Grindrod passed away and began walking on the streets on Heaven on Saturday, August 10, 2013.

Cliff Grindrod and his family were very active Members at Christian Life Center church in Walpole back in the 1980s. I would guess I first met Cliff sometime around 1979. He was about twelve years older than I am. I don't know when the last time was that I saw Cliff Grindrod or spoke to him. It has to be well over ten year ago. Cliff was a real character! I remember Cliff having a "flat top" haircut, and very few people had flat top haircuts thirty years ago! He was a construction worker and was a bit stocky. I can remember Cliff showing up for midweek Bible Study at church in work clothes splattered with cement. Thankfully, Pastor Dave Milley was not legalistic about dress (and lots of pastors were in the 1980s)! Cliff had back trouble from his construction work. His wife Joyce did not drive. Cliff had a back operation done at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women's) in 1980. I remember that since we each lived in Canton, MA, he asked me to come to his house, drive him to the hospital, drop him off, and drive his car back to his residence. Cliff had a huge 1973 Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon. It seemed so weird to just drop Cliff off and the hospital and go joy riding back to Canton along the (slightly scary) Jamaicaway and V.F.W. Parkway in that huge Caprice wagon!

A very funny memory of Cliff took place a few months after that. I often took a back road (Edge Hill Road, Sharon which becomes Walpole Street, Canton) back home from church driving from Walpole to Canton. On a Sunday around 12:45 p.m. I was taking that route and Cliff was immediately behind me in his huge Caprice wagon. In front of me was a woman driving along at a ridiculously slow pace! Well, I wrote "driving" but it was more like "crawling". I'm not a particularly fast driver, but this gal was going so slow it was absurd! When we got to the end of Walpole Street by the famous stone Canton Viaduct railroad bridge, the woman and I had our left turn signals on and Cliff took a right turn onto Neponset Street. As Cliff drove aside of my car, he rolled down his window and yelled with intensity, "You're STUCK WITH HER!!"

To this day, I never pass that intersection of Walpole and Neponset Streets at the Viaduct without thinking of Cliff yelling that! Yes, Cliff was a yeller! He had a great sense of humor and he loved to kid with others. Whenever Cliff would see me he would yell loudly, "BOBBY!!" Sometimes Cliff would yell, "I don't care WHAT they say, THAT BOBBY'S ALL RIGHT!!"

I had the unusual experience of first attending Christian Life Center church as a "layperson" and later being put on the ministerial staff. This was my first professional position as a minister, around the time I received ministerial credentials with the Assemblies of God. In those days, Cliff was out of work due to his back injury. Cliff and his wife used to come in on Fridays and clean the church building. Then, at their own expense, they served deli sandwiches, Coca-Cola and Tab. (Remember "Tab"??) When Cliff put the Tab on the table he would yell that he was "Picking up the Tab!"

Cliff was very much a "blue collar" guy, but he had a wide circle of friends. Among them were Joe and Mary Agrusa (who now live in Georgia and are good friends of mine to this day). Joe and Mary came out of the whole Vietnam protest movement of the late sixties. They were classic anti-establishment young people. (Today, Joe and Mary are very conservative people; their past is hard to believe!) You wouldn't expect a "hard hat" type like Cliff and a couple like Joe and Mary to be good friends, but they were! From the Agrusas, Cliff got his love of the "Chemex" way of making coffee. (For those who don't know what "Chemex" is, it's a lot like "Melita". For those who don't know what that is, I suggest you do an on-line search!)

In 1986, Christian Life Center church was building a second building on their property- mostly an athletic complex. One Saturday, I was scheduled to conduct a wedding ceremony. The sound technician never showed up and I could not reach her by phone. (It was the sound technician's job to get all the microphones ready, get the tapes ready, tape the ceremony, etc.) I had no idea how to turn the sound system on or how to do any of that stuff. Cliff was in his work clothes that day, working on the new building. I went over to Cliff and begged him to help me. He did. If you can picture it, there was the beautiful church sanctuary and people all dressed up arriving for the ceremony. And there was Cliff: wearing work clothes, dripping sweat! He "rescued" the ceremony that day and I am eternally grateful!

I hope I don't get in trouble for this one, but Senior Pastor Dave Milley knew a lot about building construction and loved to show up on the job site giving Cliff "suggestions". During the autumn of 1986, each Saturday was a "volunteer work day" at the construction site, as were some weekday evenings. I can still picture situations where Dave Milley would come up to Cliff and give him an earful about what he expected him to do. Cliff would then actually walk up to me, dripping sweat, with a tense and disgusted look on his face, and he would recite the words of the Pointer Sisters' song "I'm So Excited". He did not sing the words, he spoke them. Well, he intensely and slowly yelled them!

"I'm so EXCITED. And I just can't HIDE IT. I'm about to lose control and I THINK I LIKE IT!!"

That song is not played very often anymore, but any time I hear that song on the radio, I get a vivid mental picture of a disgusted Cliff Grindrod! My family and I moved to Framingham when I became pastor of First Assembly of God of Framingham in January of 1987. Just about three weeks after we moved, Cliff's father died. Cliff called me and asked me to conduct the funeral service at a funeral home in Framingham. It was then that I learned Cliff and his wife Joyce were originally from Ashland, MA (just outside Framingham). I did conduct that service. It was the first act of ministry in Framingham that I did outside of ministry at my church.

There are some Christians who have a really hard time with disappointments and with the inconsistencies of other Christians and at the hurts dished out by other Christians. There are some Christians who struggle with the unfairness and pain of life. Cliff could be like that. I'm not judging him. I have also experienced some of those same disappointments and struggles in my own life. I will say that I know that Cliff loved God, and Cliff was a good man. Most importantly, Cliff put his trust in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone for his salvation. I look forward to seeing him in Heaven. Maybe he will yell, "BOBBY!!" when he sees me, and maybe we'll each sit down and enjoy catching up over Chemex coffee.