Jeff Hampton – Page 93 – Jeff Hampton, Writer

February 23, 2021

Skipped Beats

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“Hmm . . . that’s interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“Your pulse skips a beat.”

I was sitting in the Carter BloodCare mobile unit at Wilshire a couple of weeks ago, going through blood donor prescreening, when everything came to a halt. The young woman checking my pulse let go of my wrist and called her supervisor over. He checked it too and concurred: “Your pulse skips a beat about every 30 seconds.” After asking me some questions about my health and conferring with an on-call doctor on the telephone, they let me give a pint of blood.

February 16, 2021

Cold but Safe

For Wilshire Baptist Church

My absolute very first conscious memory is looking out upon a montage of sharp black and white shapes, feeling frightened and crying at the confusion of the contrasts, and yet sensing safety in the clutch of a hand holding mine. All my senses seemed to be firing in that moment, and maybe that’s why I remember it before all others. I’ve asked my mother about this, and she says that in the winter of 1960 when I was one year old, it snowed in Richardson, and she thinks she probably took me out on the back patio to look at the white snow beginning to cover the black dirt of the new, grassless yard.

February 9, 2021February 9, 2021

Testifying

For Wilshire Baptist Church

A couple of days before Christmas I was in a music store, waiting in line to buy a tambourine, and getting impatient. But when I heard the conversation at the counter in front of me, I jumped in and offered my two cents because I believed I had some real-life experience to offer.