The With All His Heart
Norman Scarborough, Professor Aplenty BY DR. DEAN THOMPSON
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Norman Scarborough
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PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE
ome of our international students will stop by my office early in the fall after having been whisked off to The Beacon or The Varsity by campus friends eager to inculcate them into Southern foodways. They’re puzzled by a menu term that neither their dictionaries nor Google can explain: “Please, what is meant by ‘aplenty’?” It’s a concept, I tell them. It means extra, more than you ever expected, served with gusto and generosity until you sit in a happy stupor, thinking Oh wow. That was good. And, once your blood sugar has stabilized: More. But the truth is they could best comprehend that term by shadowing Norman Scarborough for a day. In life and vocation alike, Norman makes aplenty chime like a finely cast bell. Let’s begin with his hobbies as we peer through the 7:00 a.m. mists rising off the Linville River, where Norman stands in his Orvis waders amongst the currents, happily fly casting, 10–2, 10–2, ready to match wits with the perfect rainbow trout. Or we might catch the morning sun warming the marshes of the low country, where Norman crouches amidst the reeds, eyes alert for the perfect ringneck or wigeon. Norman on these jaunts is still like a kid on Christmas morning, eager and responsive, bouncing as he walks. We now make our way to his and Cindy’s home on the wonderfully named Mr. Jim Lane. You may not know that Norman is one of the best cooks in Laurens County. Just the memory of his twice-baked sweet potatoes makes me well up, and as for his famous bacon-wrapped scallops, ohh: one bite will assure you that this scallop did not die in vain. Thereafter he will serve old-fashioned pound cake, taken from his grandmother’s recipe. He beams as he hands it forth, though not as much as the recipient does. We take our coffee in their back yard and admire the pond, replete with waterfall, that he had built for his and Cindy’s pleasure as they watch their koi, again wonderfully named: Gino Vannelli, Mr. Peabody, Dot, Pyrne, and Hugh. We might move up the street to First Baptist Church. Norman’s adult Sunday School class, like everything else, was nearly derailed by the pandemic last year. But speak not of fear: he immediately led his Israelites to the safe harbor of Google Meet. He has stayed with this class for thirty years, and with Presbyterian College for forty-two, taking as inspiration a favorite passage from Colossians 3: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.”
