Building Enduring Foundations: Lessons from the Red Brick Streets of My Hometown

This blog is written by Mark Morris.

I had the unique privilege of growing up in a small Midwestern town in Central Illinois. It was a town much like all small Midwest towns at that time. Everyone seem to know everyone. The thing about growing up in this small town was there were a lot of unique things about it. I suppose it was unique for it was the only one I had ever known and it was Home.

We were in a town that had many railroads passing through and several state highways that crisscrossed through our town. We had more acres under glass back in the 60s than any place that anyone had ever heard of. We boasted of several commercial greenhouses, and we were known as the rose capital of the world . But one of the most unique things in our town was many of the streets were paved with red brick. The red brick streets were constructed back around 1941 by a government work program called WPA. Which stood for Works Progress Administration. It was part of President Roosevelt’s new deal and was no doubt one of the most famous because it affected so many people’s lives.

These red brick streets were a part of our lives. I remember riding my bicycle up and down them and later on when I learned to drive going up and down them in my first car.

Recently, I made a trip back to my hometown and as I turned off the main highway it was just a little while and I was back on a red brick. I was amazed at how nearly 80 years later these bricks were still intact and still serving their purpose. Many of the asphalt and concrete streets had to be repaired time and time again, but it seems the brick streets will endure forever.

As I drove my car up and down the red brick streets the thought occurred to me that I have an opportunity to build into my grandchildren’s lives something that will endure like the red brick streets.

You see it was necessity that caused the streets to be built, and it was necessity that caused these grandchildren to be in my life and for me to be their parents. I can dismiss my responsibilities and hurry and get through the process of raising them or I can build things into their life that will be generational.

We as grandparents,who are raising our grandchildren, can put the Apostolic doctrine into their lives and this will endure. We can put our style of worship and our style of living into them, and it will become a foundational and generational truth in their lives.

Sometimes we wonder if what we are putting into their lives will last, and then I recall a few years ago. My parents moved to a new street. A few houses from where they had built their home. Someone was doing yardwork and discovered a brick—a red brick. Then they began to clear the sod off of the brick and realized there was a sidewalk from the WPA on that street and they took the time to uncover it. It was still as solid and intact as it was many decades ago. Never give up, let’s put generational truth into our grandchildren that we are raising one brick of truth at a time.

As I drove down the red brick street it brought back warm memories of days gone by. I never want my grandchildren to lose this doctrine and this way of life so I will do my best to put a red brick of truth in them.