Long time readers will remember I often stop whatever I am writing in the autumn to write stories. Many of my stories have to do with the fictional town, Joshaway, Texas, which would be south of Fort Worth on Highway 174, if it actually existed at all, which it does not, that space being occupied by the very real town of Joshua, Texas, where I did grow up, or, at least, got older. A good portion of the populace insists I never have grown up. The preponderance of evidence on their side is so great I am compelled to return to my story, begun yesterday, of how I became a Pearl Diver at a Local Greasy Spoon in Joshaway, Texas, in order to divert the attention of mental health professionals who might use me for some study, if allowed.
Let me say, in all actuality, which is near reality, but not in the same spot, I have four grown children, only they are really, actually grown, not like me, just older but in my accustomed mental state, which is primarily the state of agitation. All of them met their future spouses at Baptist Youth Camp, which is, apparently, a good place to pick up chicks. I did not marry the girl I met at Baptist Youth Camp, like my kids did, but I did marry the girl I met in the registration line at a Baptist University, which is much like Baptist Youth Camp, only without all the bad music.
The girl I met at Baptist Youth Camp is the reason I became a Pearl Diver at the Local Greasy Spoon in Joshaway, Texas. It was not her fault, she just lived in Burleson, not Joshaway, and wanted me to come see her, which I tried to do, illegally, being underage and mechanically shaky, in my father's Dodge Dart, one Saturday night. I wrecked that car and another car at one of the three stop signs in Burleson, while listening to Rod Stewart sing his new song, "Maggie Mae," on the AM radio, the station being 1190 KLIF, which is now a Spanish station featuring Mexican Pentecostal Revival preachers, all of whom actually sing better than Rod Stewart.
But that is another story for another day.
You must remember, in those days, Joshaway was completely Baptist, except for the part that was Church of Christ, who were baptists who did not like the name and thought we might as well call ourselves the Prune-Juice Church if we were not going to have God in our name, only we thought they were more like prunes, with their a cappella singing, which is how they assurred us is how Jesus sang in the New Testament and it made them more righteous, so I always wanted to know why they used air conditioning and padded pews and microphones if they were so set on being like Jesus and I did not like their snobby prune juice comment, anyway.
The other part of the town was slightly Methodist. I would have gone to the Methodist Church, since they were closer to my house and sang to instruments, which covered up some of the bad voices, like the really bad voices of Eleanora Prattwhiler and her sisters, Mona and Lorna. They had a girl's trio when they were younger, when they were at least cute, which turned into a Ladie's Trio when they got older and were not cute, not cute at all, nor able to sing, so naturally, they had to sing in church because their singing hurt the business in the honky-tonks and you had to let people sing in church so long as they made a joyful noise.
I would have been a Methodist, the Prattwhiler Sisters notwithstanding, but while I was still deciding with what form of the Reformation I would cast my eternal lot the horse I rode to church suddenly began to refuse to stop at the Methodist Church. He ran all the way from our corral, past the Methodist Church, past the Church of Christ and their Prune Juice, stopping only when he came to the Baptist Church, withstanding my greatest efforts to rein him in or turn him around.
You could imagine the ghost of old John Wesley, standing, arms crossed, in front of the Methodist church-house as my horse and I approached. Visible, one supposes, only to my horse, you can just imagine Wesley shaking his head, waving his arms and yelling, "My people have suffered enough! To the baptists with you! Be gone!"
I suppose it is just as likely my horse could not swallow the Methodist exposition of Hebrews 6, with their odd explanation of apostasy. He might have been a Calvinist, my horse, though we never actually discussed Armininisim or Total Depravity. I was still slugging through the Institutes of Christianity when my horse had been made into Alpo, he having run away with my father one time too many.
Who really knows? Maybe he just did not like the Methodist hitching post. Regardless, he would not stop at the Methodist Church-house. He bolted right past the Church Of Christ, as well, and, my Pentecostal friends and snuffy Presbyterians notwithstanding, that left the baptist church as the only respectable choice. I became Free Church by default.
So, there it is. If my horse had been a Methodist, I would never have been immersed.
Opinions expressed here are mine alone. This is a fiction story. Any resemblance to any persons or places referenced in this story to any persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
OK to be fair and balanced.....those of us in the little Presbyterian church on the hill were very happy to be so far out of town. Yes you really had intown people (like Dr. Davis with his fancy horse drawn automobile) and my ancestors that were truly in the country (flat footed and dusty). We went to our little church (35-50 Cousins and other assorted relatives) and yes Grandma biff played the piano and cousin Erma biff sang proudly and loudly upfront. Blasting out just another verse of old rugged cross or was it bold molded moss?? Her diction suffered from too much inbreeding but that's another story. Let it be said that while the intown folks had their fly-by-night churches and fancy pews, we country folk made due with history. When you sit in church, on your hand whittled chair, feet away from the family cemetary containing George Washington Biff and Robert E Lee Biff you really feel part of the land. But that's another day. Let it end with this-- when you are best friend with a Baptist voice-of-god and go to church with your chromosome pairs you sometimes think that you hear voices like Joan of Arc. biff
Posted by: biff | November 09, 2011 at 01:10 PM