Hear the story read by the author.
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. One recent Wednesday evening Pastor Henry O’Donnell’s daughter Katie was slumped forlornly in his office. “It wasn’t my fault,” she protested.
“Just tell me what happened,” Henry said, trying not to lose his temper.
“Mrs. Miggins’ has to take some medicine that affects her eyesight so she hired me to do some chores for twenty bucks.”
“Yes, I know all that,” Henry said. “I dropped you off at her house.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure Mrs. Miggins medication affects more than her eyes because she kept telling me to feed the cat, but she doesn’t have a cat. But when I tried to explain that to her she accused me of killing the cat. So I told her I would feed the cat if she told me where the food was. She said it was under the sink but there was no food there because, you know, she doesn’t really have a cat. So finally I just made a bowl of cereal and put it on the floor by the back door.”
“Get to the part about the car,” Henry demanded.
“I am! Sheesh.” Katie rolled her eyes. “Okay, so it was about 6:45 and Mrs. Miggins said she had to get to the Trustees meeting. You were supposed to pick us up and take her there but you were late.”
“Yes, I know,” O’Donnell replied. “Something urgent came up.” He purposely omitted the details of what had delayed him. He didn’t think Katie needed to know he was late because he’d gotten into an argument with a seventeen year-old classmate of hers, who also happened to be the manager of a nearby fast food joint, over what size fries he’d ordered at the drive-through.
“Well,” Katie continued, “Mrs. Miggins was getting really upset. I tried to call your cell a bunch of times, but you didn’t answer.”
Henry had left his cell phone in the car while he went inside to debate the teenage fry dictator. “You should have waited,” he told Katie. “I would have been there soon.”
“I wanted to wait. But Mrs. Miggins was getting angry. She didn’t want to be late to the meeting. She was afraid they would vote on what color to paint the narthex without her. When she found out I have my learner’s permit, she said I could drive her in her car. I told her I didn’t think that was a good idea but she said if I wanted to get paid, I’d do it.”
“You aren’t supposed to drive without being supervised by someone over 21.”
“That’s what I told Mrs. Miggins. She said she was a lot older than 21.”
“Yes, but she couldn’t see!”
“I pointed that out to her as well. She said she would be able to hear if I did something wrong. I kind of believed her, actually.”
“Okay,” Henry said, rubbing his temples. “But Mrs. Miggins’ car is a stick shift. You don’t know how to drive a stick shift.”
“I told her that, too,” Katie replied. “She said that was a travesty and that she would teach me. She also said a lot of nasty things about you because you weren’t teaching me to drive a stick shift, by the way.”
“I’m sure she did,” Henry sighed. “Look, you clearly weren’t ready or you wouldn’t have wrecked her car.”
“First of all,” Katie informed him, “it’s not wrecked. The fire hydrant had a lot more damage than that old monster Ford Mrs. Miggins has. And second of all, I drove it very well. And it wasn’t easy, either, with Mrs. Miggins yelling at me all the time about the squirrels in the road. I kept telling her there were no squirrels in the road but she kept insisting I was slaughtering the poor little rodents. That’s the way she said it: slaughtering the poor little rodents.”
“Get to the accident,” Henry snapped.
“That’s just it,” Katie practically shouted. “I didn’t have an accident. We got to the church just fine. I parked in the parking lot but Mrs. Miggins had fallen asleep. I couldn’t wake her up so I decided to leave her there and get help.”
“So how did the car end up hitting the fire hydrant? Did Mrs. Miggins drive it away?”
“No, Dad. Apparently when you park a stick shift you can’t leave it in neutral or it rolls. And nobody told me that.”
“So the car rolled down the hill and hit the fire hydrant while you were in the church.”
“Yes!” Katie exclaimed triumphantly.
Henry sat back, jaw clenched, face red with anger. “Katie, if you ever want to get your driver’s license you need to be a lot more responsible.”
“But Dad,” Katie pleaded, “I told you, it wasn’t my fault!”
At that moment Henrietta Miggins stepped into the office. “She’s right,” Henrietta said.
“I thought you were going to the hospital,” Henry replied.
“I’m fine,” Henrietta huffed. “I was wearing my seatbelt. And there’s no way I’m going to let those trustees paint the narthex some outlandish color. Ralph Billings wanted to paint it olive, if you can believe that.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re alright,” Henry said. “And don’t worry. Katie will pay for the damage to your car as part of her punishment.”
“Nonsense,” Henrietta said. “You’ll pay for the damage to the car. It was your fault after all.”
“My fault!” Henry exclaimed.
“Of course,” Henrietta said. “Who doesn’t turn on their cell phone in this day and age? And what kind of father doesn’t teach his daughter to drive a manual transmission?”
“See Dad,” Katie said. “I told you it wasn’t my fault. It was yours.”
“Don’t back talk your father,” Henrietta snapped at Katie. Then she handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “You did a fine job today, dear. Pastor, I want you and Katie to pick me up on Friday and take me to get my car from the shop. Katie can drive me home in it. I’ll finish teaching her how to operate a manual transmission.”
“Fine,” Henry sighed. His head hurt and he didn’t want to argue. Katie was considering which would be worse – letting her Dad punish her or learning to drive from Mrs. Miggins.
Henrietta fixed the pastor with a stern gaze. “Honestly,” she said, “I don’t know how you get any work done with all these squirrels running around in here.”
She turned and stomped out of the room. Katie just shrugged to her father. There wasn’t a squirrel in sight.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Water Balloons
Hear the story read by the author.
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. One day this May summer decided to pop in early for a quick scouting expedition. By 10 am local thermometers were venturing into the eighties and Normal’s television meteorologists began planning their big stories on breaking the record high for the date.
The folks at the little church welcomed this unseasonable warmth. It had been a long and bitter winter and they were happy to leave their hats and coats and scarves and mittens at home. Thirty-seven year-old Kevin Boyer even decided to wear shorts and sandals to church, much to his wife Jill’s chagrin.
Seventy year-old Henrietta Miggins made no such concession to the heat. She was of the school that believed you dressed for church in your Sunday best regardless of the weather. She even had mixed feelings about the air conditioning that had been installed in 1985. Such attentions to comfort smacked of the Devil’s temptations to her.
Henrietta clucked her tongue at Kevin’s shorts and sandals, but she had come to expect such crassness from him. What brought her stew of disapproval to a roiling boil was Pastor Henry O’Donnell’s decision to forgo his clerical robes in favor of a Hawaiian print shirt that morning.
As for the pastor, he felt not just comfortable but downright progressive. As he looked in the mirror that morning he thought, “I am one cool clergyman.” The early warmth had put him in a particularly cheerful mood. Even Henrietta’s disapproving glare and the inevitable rant he anticipated from her at coffee hour could not dampen his spirits.
The children of the church were even more delighted by the weather than the adults. Pastor O’Donnell’s fifteen-year-old daughter Katie and her friend Tabitha had discovered a bag of balloons in the church kitchen and planned to have a water balloon fight after service. Meanwhile, Karen Winslow decided to conduct her pre-school Sunday school class, the Guppies, outside on the lawn.
Kevin and Jill’s daughter Mary was in the Guppies Sunday school class. She and the other kids were having such a good time playing outside that when service was over Karen offered to continue watching them through coffee hour. Kevin and Jill happily agreed to leave Mary in Karen’s care for a while longer.
Mary was on a quest to capture slugs from the flower garden when she saw Katie and Tabitha filling up their water balloons from a garden hose. Mary was fascinated. It had never occurred to her to put anything besides air in a balloon.
Katie and Tabitha each took two water balloons and stood back to back. They then paced off ten steps, turned and fired, as though engaged in an eighteenth century duel. Katie’s first balloon hit Tabitha right in her belly, soaking her. Tabitha’s balloon sailed over Katie’s head, bursting harmlessly on the ground. Katie fired again but missed. Tabitha wound up to throw her remaining balloon and Katie took off squealing. Tabitha pursued.
Mary had watched all this and now her eyes were fixed on a bright red sphere resting on the grass. It was Katie’s second balloon. It hadn’t burst when it hit the ground.
Mary looked over at Karen Winslow. She was occupied with Mary’s classmate Sierra who had fallen and skinned her knee. Mary walked over to the balloon. She picked it up.
It felt surprisingly heavy in her little hands. She noticed Tabitha and Katie had restocked with more balloons and were chasing each other around the yard shouting and laughing. It looked like a lot of fun to Mary. She decided to join in.
Unfortunately, Tabitha and Katie’s legs were considerably longer than Mary’s and she had difficulty catching up. And the teenagers’ duel was morphing into something more like guerilla warfare as they sought out hiding places from which to launch sneak attacks. Mary eventually lost track of where they were.
Where Katie was, was hiding behind the tool shed waiting to ambush Tabitha. She crouched, two water balloons in hand, as Tabitha stalked up the path searching for her.
Pastor O’Donnell had been watching the girls’ game from the steps leading to the social hall as he munched on a handful of grapes. The teenagers carefree romping warmed his heart. But he noticed that Katie had definitely gotten the better of Tabitha. Tabitha’s clothes and hair were drenched while Katie had only a single damp spot on her shoulder blade. From his vantage point the pastor could see the impending trap Tabitha was approaching.
O’Donnell tossed a grape at Tabitha to get her attention. Then he pointed toward the tool shed with a wink.
Tabitha grinned. She changed direction and circled around the other side of the shed. She caught Katie off guard, soaking her with two quick direct hits to the back of her head, then dashed off the other way.
O’Donnell’s view of the resulting chase was blocked by Henrietta Miggins. She strode up to him and demanded to know why he had chosen to dress so offensively. It was a bad example to set for his delinquent flock.
“Lighten up,” O’Donnell said. “There’s no rule against a pastor leading service in a Hawaiian shirt.” He probably shouldn’t have used the words “lighten up,” but he figured he was in for a lecture either way. And he was correct.
Just as Henrietta was reaching the apex of her fury, one finger jabbing into the air for effect, Tabitha bolted past behind her. And at just that moment Katie, focused only on revenge, launched one of her water balloons. Unfortunately her aim was off and it sailed over Tabitha’s head – and struck a direct hit on Henrietta Miggins’ backside.
Katie and Tabitha pulled up short. Henrietta’s mouth opened and closed as though she had suddenly lost the ability to speak. Her finger remained in the air without apparent purpose.
O’Donnell began to laugh.
He couldn’t help himself. Henrietta looked ridiculous. She regained her senses and fixed him with an icy glare. It only made him laugh harder. She shoved him aside and stalked into the social hall. O’Donnell stumbled to the ground, rolled onto his back, and continued laughing as tears ran down his cheeks.
Ten minutes later Henrietta emerged from the bathroom where she had done her best to dry her dress with paper towels. As she was heading back toward the social hall planning the withering speech she would deliver to the pastor, she noticed little four-year-old Mary walking down the hall with her water balloon and peeking into various rooms in search of Katie and Tabitha.
“Little girl!” Henrietta said. “What do you have there?”
Meanwhile, outside Pastor O’Donnell had regained his composure. As much as he enjoyed seeing Henrietta become collateral damage in the water balloon fight, he knew he had to do the responsible thing. He summoned Katie and Tabitha to him for a stern reprimand then told them to find some other way to enjoy the day’s warmth.
As they sulked away from him, a red orb flew out of an open window behind him. It hit O’Donnell square on the top of the head and burst, spilling water down over his face and drenching his Hawaiian shirt. Now it was O’Donnell’s turn to gape in shock.
He dashed into the Social Hall to find the culprit but the room was empty. Everyone was outside enjoying the weather and the balloon assassin had made a clean getaway.
Out on the lawn Karen finally located Mary and scolded her for leaving Karen’s sight. Mary took it with aplomb. She received such scoldings several times a day. She just wished she had another water balloon.
Meanwhile, Henrietta Miggins joined her friends Celia and Betsy. Betsy raised an eyebrow and asked, “did you throw that water balloon at Pastor O’Donnell?”
“Do you really think me capable of something so childish?” Henrietta snapped. But she said it with a sly smile that suggested maybe there was indeed a bit of child left in Henrietta. Neither Betsy nor Celia pursued the matter further.
Coffee hour was winding down. After all, several of the church members needed to get home and change out of their wet clothes.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Breakfast in Bed
Note to my readers: If you follow this blog regularly you may notice that I am not scheduled to publish a story this week. This is a special "bonus" story in honor of Mother's Day. And it is dedicated, of course, to my mother. Love you, Mom!
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Karen Winslow has taught Sunday school there for many years. And every year on Mother’s Day Karen’s daughter Carrie provides breakfast in bed for her mother before they go to church.
The tradition started when Carrie was three years old. The first breakfast was cold cereal and orange juice that little Carrie prepared with the help of her father, Del. As Carrie grew older she tried to make more complex breakfasts. However Carrie seemed to have inherited Del’s ineptitude in the kitchen instead of her mother’s expertise. After enduring rubbery, slightly greenish eggs when Carrie was eight, blackened French toast that tasted strangely of garlic when Carrie was ten, and pancakes that required a steak knife to cut when Carrie was thirteen, Karen remembered the days of cold cereal with longing.
All that changed when Carrie got her driver’s license. Unable to face her arch nemesis, the stove, one more time, Carrie instead woke up at five in the morning to drive to a bakery in the town of Tenor Falls thirty miles away. There she purchased a bag of hot, fresh cinnamon rolls.
These were no ordinary cinnamon rolls. They were buttery, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon delights. They were the one commercially purchased baked good that Karen acknowledged as superior to what she produced in her own kitchen. Upon tasting them for the first time during a family road trip, Karen half seriously suggested they move to Tenor Falls just to be able to enjoy the treats on a more regular basis.
Needless to say the cinnamon rolls were the best Mother’s Day breakfast Karen had ever had. So the following year Carrie did it again. And thus a tradition was born. With her father’s help, Carrie managed to keep the tradition up even after moving to Cincinnati for college and after marrying a handsome young man named Carlos Lopez.
This year Carrie was back in Normal. Carrie and Carlos had moved in with Del and Karen after the company they worked for in Cincinnati went bankrupt. And this Mother’s Day would be different for the Winslow family due to an even more significant event:
Carrie had recently become a mom herself.
A few months earlier She had given birth to little Scott Lopez. Scott was too young yet to grasp the significance of the holiday, of course, but Carlos was not about to let Carrie’s first Mother’s Day as a mother go by without an extravagant celebration. When Carlos learned of Carrie’s plan to wake up before dawn and drive forty minutes each way to buy cinnamon rolls he had to intervene.
“You should sleep in,” Carlos insisted. “I’ll make breakfast for both you and your mother.”
Now Carlos was an excellent cook, but to Carrie the best part of his proposal was the sleeping in. At this stage in his brief life, Scott rarely slept more than four hours in a row. Carrie could no longer remember a time when she wasn’t exhausted.
So the next morning after feeding Scott at 5 am, Carrie went back to sleep while Carlos took Scott and went down to the kitchen to whip up a spinach quiche.
Carlos sat Scott in his infant chair on the counter while he worked. He made a crust, mixed the filling, scrubbed the floor after Scott knocked the mixing bowl off the counter, mixed more filling, poured the filling into the crust, slid it into the oven and set the timer for fifty minutes. Then he took Scott out to the living room and lay down on the couch. As a good modern husband Carlos shared equally in the childcare duties, which meant he was just as exhausted as Carrie. So whenever he had a few minutes he grabbed a quick nap.
He was awakened not by the oven timer but by Scott’s crying. Carlos leapt off the couch and scooped Scott out of his infant chair. “Shh,” he cooed to the baby. “Don’t wake Mommy up. We’re letting her sleep in for Mother’s Day.”
The cause of Scott’s unhappiness resided just where Carlos suspected it would – in his diaper. Carlos glanced at the oven timer. He still had ten minutes. He whisked Scott into Del’s den, which had been temporarily converted into a nursery.
Carlos unfastened the sticky tabs on the dirty diaper, disposed of it in a magical contraption whose inventor Carlos would have recommended for a Nobel Prize, and cleaned Scott off with a baby wipe. He was just placing a fresh diaper under Scott’s bottom when the boy decided he hadn’t quite finished what he’d started in the last diaper. Carlos sighed. This was not an unprecedented event.
And that’s when he heard the oven timer go off in the kitchen.
Carlos shifted into high gear. He quickly stripped off the newly soiled diaper. But in his haste one of the sticky tabs brush against Scott’s onesie where the adhesive grabbed onto the cotton and pulled it toward the danger zone. Carlos yanked the dirty diaper free but it was too late – the onesie was now soiled.
Carlos peeled the onesie off, disposed of the second diaper and reached for more baby wipes.
The container was empty.
Now Carlos was beginning to panic. He found a fresh container of wipes in the cupboard but when he returned to his son he discovered that for a person who hadn’t yet learned to roll over, Scott had somehow spread the mess across his entire lower body.
Carlos disposed of another half container of wipes frantically scrubbing his son clean. But Scott demonstrated his emotional bond with his father by feeding off Carlos’s frenzy. As Carlos tried to affix a new diaper, the baby pinwheeled his little legs like he was riding a bicycle. This made the task considerably more difficult. Carlos had to redo the diaper three times before it was secured properly.
By the time he ran back into the kitchen and deposited Scott in the bouncy chair there was a distinct acrid smell in the air. He opened the oven door and his shoulders slumped as he saw the blackened top of the quiche.
Del wandered into the kitchen and looked over Carlos’s shoulder. “That doesn’t look right,” Del said.
“I burnt it,” Carlos moaned.
“Maybe you can scrape the burned stuff off,” Del said. He was used to having to do such surgery on the rare occasions when he tried to make food himself.
“No, no,” Carlos replied, pulling himself together. “It’s no good. I’ll make French toast instead.”
Del shrugged and got himself a cup of coffee as Carlos started his new culinary project. Del retrieved the newspaper from the front step and retreated to the garage, which had replaced the den as his personal refuge since Scott’s arrival.
This time Carlos had finished the breakfast and had it all set out on two trays, one for Karen and one for Carrie, before Scott started crying. He checked Scott’s diaper but it was empty. This was just one of those mysterious bouts of unhappiness that babies seemed to have regularly.
Carlos covered the trays to keep them warm and took Scott back into the den. He sat in the rocking chair and rocked his son gently. Scott stopped crying after a few moments and drifted off to sleep. By that time Carlos had also fallen asleep.
That’s where Carrie found them when she came downstairs an hour later wondering what had become of her breakfast in bed. Carlos was snoring lightly with Scott on his chest. Carrie’s heart welled with love as she observed the tender tableau.
Karen came up behind her and smiled. “Happy Mother’s Day,” Karen said.
“You too, Mom,” Carrie replied and squeezed Karen’s hand.
The two women went into the kitchen and discovered the French toast, now cold and unappealing.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Rock Around the Flock – Part Two
Hear the story read by the author
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. In an effort to attract more teens and young adults, Pastor Henry O’Donnell had recruited several congregants to form a church rock band. The hope was the modern music would appeal to a younger generation more than the usual dusty old hymns.
Two of the recruits for this band – lead singer Audra Park and guitarist Ian Wells – were excellent musicians. The rest of the group consisted of forty-four year old Missy Moore on drums, Kevin Boyer attempting to relive his high school garage band days on rhythm guitar, and church secretary Tammy Billings reluctantly rounding out the group on her upright bass.
Most of the congregation was skeptical of the idea, particularly the choir who had been replaced by the rock band and the three older women known collectively as the Little Old Ladies. But Pastor O’Donnell urged everyone to give the new music a chance. If it worked, the pews would be filled with new, young members, he promised.
The church already had two regular teen attendees – Pastor O’Donnell’s fifteen-year-old daughter Katie and her friend Tabitha. They were simultaneously intrigued and skeptical about the rock band. But O’Donnell was pleased to see them in the front pew on the Sunday of the band’s debut. It seemed an indication that his plan was working.
The band’s rehearsals had been a little rough around the edges. Missy was certainly an enthusiastic drummer but her beat tended to wander around a bit. Kevin was gradually shaking the rust off his guitar skills but frequently became so distracted by his attempts to strike just the right rock and roll pose that he missed changes. And Tammy’s bass style was more Bach than rock. But Ian and Audra managed to hold the whole thing together most of the time. On the morning of their debut Ian wasn’t sure they were ready, but neither was he sure they could significantly improve by delaying.
The band gathered in the choir room before service. Missy was the last to arrive and she made quite an entrance when she did. She was decked out in a leather mini-skirt, fishnet stockings and a red bustier. Her pale flesh bulged out around the edges of the bustier in a way that Ian thought would probably upset the congregation a lot more than the change in musical style.
As shocked as they were by Missy’s appearance she was equally shocked by their rather preppie attire. “We’re supposed to be a rock band!” she wailed. “You all look like you work in a department store!”
“Or like we’re going to church,” Tammy replied.
“I thought the point was to make the church more rock and roll,” Missy countered.
“Well, there’s nothing any of us can do about what we’re wearing now,” Audra said, trying not to stare at Missy. “We’re on.”
When the band entered the chancel two minutes before the start of service the congregation immediately fell silent, except for Katie and Tabitha in the front pew, who had to bury their faces in their arms to contain their laughter. Pastor O’Donnell stared at Missy and for the first time began to question the wisdom of his idea.
The plan was for the band to open service with their first song. Everyone in the sanctuary leaned forward, including the choir members and the Little Old Ladies. Even the most adamant opponents of rock music in church were still curious to see how the band would do.
Missy tapped her drumsticks together to count out the beat and they launched into their first number, an upbeat if rather generic piece of Christian light rock. Any hope Ian had that they would rise to the occasion was quickly dashed. Missy’s adrenaline caused her to pick a tempo half again as fast as they’d practiced. Kevin had a hard time keeping up so he compensated by playing louder. The congregation slumped back in their pews. Their curiosity had been satisfied and now they were simply trying to get through the audio onslaught.
The band would have been better off just trying to get through it themselves. But Kevin noticed the lack of enthusiasm coming from the pews and decided what they needed was more stage presence. He began channeling the guitar heroes of his youth and tromped across the stage, head flailing.
The guitar heroes of his youth had probably practiced their stage moves, however, to assure that they wouldn’t make the kind of blunder Kevin made. As he danced backwards behind Ian during an instrumental portion of the song, he tripped on Ian’s guitar cord, simultaneously unplugging it and sending Kevin tumbling onto his backside.
Both guitars fell silent leaving only Missy and Tammy to carry the song. Missy tried to save things by launching into a prolonged drum solo. A few members of the congregation began to wonder if Missy was having some kind of seizure. Even more congregants discovered an urgent need to visit the restroom and slipped out of the sanctuary.
Pastor O’Donnell hung his head sadly. But through it all Katie and Tabitha thrust their hands in the air and swayed in time with the music.
Ian got his guitar plugged back in, Kevin regained his feet and mercifully the song came to an end. However Missy made a rather overly dramatic flourish as she struck the last symbol chime and heard a ripping sound from the back of her bustier. As Katie and Tabitha clapped wildly and the rest of the congregation stared in stunned silence, Missy slipped off the drum stool and backed out through the rear chancel doors, her hands holding the bustier precariously in place.
Missy returned in time for the next song wearing a choir robe, which pretty much everyone agreed was an improvement. The remainder of the band’s songs in the service went comparatively better than the first. But only comparatively.
After the service ended Katie and Tabitha ran up to Pastor O’Donnell. “That was awesome, Dad!” Katie said.
“Yeah,” Tabitha agreed. “Our friends will definitely come to church to see that!”
Then the two girls burst into laughter.
The following week marked the choir’s triumphant return with a selection of dusty old hymns.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Rock Around the Flock – Part One
Hear the story read by the author.
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Like most churches, they are always looking for ways to bring in more young people. Unfortunately the current crop of young people is notorious for not being particularly interested in traditional church services. So it was with great excitement that Senior Pastor Henry O’Donnell gathered the staff of the little church one Tuesday morning to declare that he had found the solution.
Henry had spent the weekend at a pastoral conference attending a variety of mind numbing seminars and speakers. But one seminar late on the second day called, “Making Church Cool,” had so piqued his interest that he had actually stayed awake for the entire hour. Susan, the vivacious young woman with the dazzling smile who led the seminar, laid out the psyche of her generation in a way that completely transformed Henry’s way of thinking.
He explained all of this to the little church’s staff who, in spite of their better judgment, found themselves leaning forward in anticipation of this sure-fire youth attracting method. Henry paused to milk maximum drama from the moment. Then he said:
“We need a house rock band.”
The staff stared at him. It was not quite the reaction Henry had hoped for. The thing was a church rock band wasn’t exactly a revolutionary idea. But Susan had used a very persuasive Power Point presentation with lots of impressive statistics. Henry tried without success to remember some of them.
Finally he resorted to simple logic. “Today’s young people don’t want to hear dusty hymns. They listen to rock and roll. Heck, I listen to rock and roll when I’m not at church and I’m hardly young. Churches that incorporate modern music into the service often see a dramatic increase in youth attendance.”
“What about the choir,” asked choir director Shane Reed.
Henry realized he had not considered the choir. “Maybe you can provide back up for the band,” he suggested. “And you can still do special performances like the Christmas concert.”
“I’m not sure the choir members are going to be too happy about singing back up to a rock band,” Shane replied. He was none too happy about the idea himself.
“We’ll figure it out,” Henry said. “Sometimes change is a little painful but it’s still necessary.”
“Where are we going to get this band,” asked Associate Pastor Michelle Tellum.
Another annoying detail Henry hadn’t considered. “There must be members of the congregation who play rock instruments. Your boyfriend plays guitar, right?”
“Yeah…” Michelle replied. Ian, her boyfriend, played guitar in a jazz band. She thought he might be willing to play in a rock band as well, but doubted that he would be very excited about a regular gig at the church.
As it turned out, she knew Ian pretty well. He was definitely not excited when she told him about the idea. But he agreed to do it because he didn’t want her to look bad in front of Pastor O’Donnell who was, after all, her boss.
“Who else is in the band?” Ian asked her.
“Well, you’re the first,” Michelle admitted.
“Great,” Ian sighed. “Hey, you should get Audra to be the lead singer.”
“Good idea,” Michelle said. And it was a good idea. Audra was a new member of the church and had a fantastic voice. She was also young and pretty and Michelle felt a small pang of jealousy that Audra had come so quickly to Ian’s mind.
Still, Michelle did ask Audra to sing in the rock band. Audra initially declined, but when she heard Ian had requested her personally she changed her mind. “Ian’s a great guitarist,” she gushed. “If he’s doing it I guess I could give it a try.” Michelle did her best to be sincere when she thanked Audra.
Not everyone in the church was reluctant to participate. When word of the band got around, Missy Moore quickly volunteered to play drums. All concerned were surprised. Nobody even knew Missy played drums. Missy was a big, cheerful forty-four year-old woman who did not seem like the rock and roll type. But she assured Pastor O’Donnell and the founding members of the band that she had been playing drums since high school and owned her own drum set. This last fact sealed the deal.
Kevin Boyer also begged to participate. This was another surprise because Kevin usually begged not to participate in church activities. But Kevin had been part of a garage band in high school. That band had big dreams but lacked an equivalently sized work ethic. The highlight of their career was playing at Kevin’s sister’s fifteenth birthday party. The prospect of picking up “the axe” again sent a wave of youthful nostalgia through Kevin.
By axe, Kevin of course meant guitar. Kevin assured Ian that he would be happy playing rhythm guitar to Ian’s lead. Ian suggested Kevin try playing bass since they needed one. But bass did not fit with the rock star image in Kevin’s dreams.
As it turned out, the position of bass player proved very difficult to fill. Finally church secretary Tammy Billings agreed to the job. Tammy didn’t play bass guitar, but she did play the upright bass. Ian assured everyone that though it might look funny to have an upright bass in a rock band the sound was basically equivalent when the strings were plucked.
While the band was forming Henry was dealing with the fallout among the broader congregation. Shane was correct in his assessment that the choir would not be happy about being replaced by a rock band. There were even threats of a boycott.
The Little Old Ladies – three senior members of the congregation who were no more fans of rock music than they were fans of today’s youth – echoed those threats. Celia Simmons was a member of both the choir and the Little Old Ladies and was so wound up Henry feared she might explode. He urged everyone to just give the new direction a chance and promised when the church was full of teens and young adults they would all appreciate his plan.
As the day of the band’s debut approached, Ian hoped the pastor was right.
To be continued…
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The Great Carrot Controversy
Hear the story read by the author.
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Each spring the church hosts an Easter egg hunt and party for the Sunday school children the day before Easter. This year Karen Winslow, who was in charge of the party, decided to set up an area where the kids could have their pictures taken with the Easter bunny.
Karen was worried it would be difficult to find someone willing to wear the costume she had rented. But to her surprise, head usher Ralph Billings volunteered. What she didn’t know was that Ralph had an ulterior motive. He had always disapproved of the unhealthy candy that Karen put in the plastic eggs she hid around the church grounds. But everybody had shouted down his annual suggestion to use healthy snacks instead of jellybeans and marshmallow chicks.
The photo op was scheduled at the beginning of the party before the kids became covered in dye and grass stains. Karen dragged a chair out near some bushes at the edge of the back lawn and surrounded it with bouquets of spring flowers. Ralph donned the costume and took his place in the diorama as the first families started to arrive.
Most of the kids were delighted by the giant purple Easter bunny and happy to sit on his lap to get their pictures taken. Two year-old Susie Boyer was the exception. Despite her parents’ pleas, she wouldn’t go near the oversized rabbit.
After about half an hour everyone moved inside to dye eggs. This was the opportunity Ralph was waiting for. He had surreptitiously watched out the window as Karen hid the plastic eggs around the lawn before the party, memorizing their location. Now that he was alone he quickly went around replacing the candy in the eggs with small packets of baby carrots. He figured the kids would understand that carrots were the kind of treats that a real bunny would give away.
As much fun as the children were having dying their hands, clothes, the tables, the floor of the social hall and even the occasional egg a multitude of colors, they quickly abandoned the activity when Karen announced it was time for the Easter egg hunt. Messy crafts were cool but candy was candy.
That excitement turned to disappointment and then to anger as the kids discovered the contents of the plastic eggs. Karen was a little miffed as well. She sidled up to Ralph and hissed, “Where’s all that candy I bought?”
Ralph just shrugged. After all, Karen had given him strict orders not to talk while in costume.
Meanwhile, the kids endeavored to work out the nature of this strange phenomenon on their own. Six year-old Tyler Park thought he’d deduced the answer. Clearly the Easter bunny was an imposter. Tyler suspected a leprechaun was behind the ruse, perhaps as part of a rivalry between St. Patrick’s Day and Easter.
“What do we do,” asked Mary Boyer, Susie’s older sister by two years.
“We use his trick against him,” Tyler declared.
Karen was still trying to grill the unresponsive rabbit when the children charged. They turned the plastic eggs into weapons, pelting the faux Easter bunny without mercy. Karen scrambled out of the line of fire, and then tried to regain control of the kids. She did not succeed.
Tammy Billings, Ralph’s wife and the church secretary, watched the assault with horror. She grabbed Karen. “We’ve got to do something,” Tammy cried.
“We need candy,” Karen declared.
Tammy’s eyes lit up. “I know where we can get some!”
She ran for the church office. Pastor Henry O’Donnell was a fan of a certain brand of toffee-filled chocolate egg that was only available at Easter time. Each year he stocked up on several boxes so he could enjoy them in the months after Easter. Strangely, no matter how many boxes he bought, he usually went through them in about a week. Tammy knew that the pastor kept his stash in his bottom left desk drawer.
Meanwhile, Ralph was trying unsuccessfully to distract the attacking horde of kids by doing a little dance. The plastic eggs didn’t hurt him through the heavy costume but he didn’t want the kids to waste their carrots.
Susie did not quite understand what was going on but she did like throwing things and so she joined in the bombardment of the big purple bunny. In her excitement, her fear of the large creature drained away.
The plastic eggs may not have done any damage to Ralph on impact but one did finally find its way under foot, causing him to slip and fall. And when Susie saw the big, fluffy, no-longer-scary bunny lying on the ground she ran up and jumped on top of it, landing right on its crotch.
Up to this point Ralph had managed to avoid speaking. But the unexpected impact of the two year-old on a rather sensitive part of his body elicited a single word that was not really appropriate for bunnies or people to use in polite society. The kids reacted to this outburst by screaming and fleeing. Susie didn’t quite understand this either, but she also liked to run and scream so she joined in this new game as well.
Ralph crawled back toward the church building to find an ice pack.
Unfortunately he reached the door just as Tammy burst out shouting, “Candy” and waving the boxes of chocolate toffee eggs in the air. The door hit Ralph in the head, knocking him over.
The children’s fear of the swearing leprechaun disguised as a bunny was forgotten at the mention of candy. They swarmed Tammy who broke open the boxes and passed out the eggs while Ralph dragged himself inside.
Two minutes later the kids were all sitting quietly on the grass stuffing the treats into their mouths.
Five minutes after that they were tearing around the lawn on a sugar high.
And Ralph spent the rest of the afternoon searching stores for boxes of the chocolate toffee eggs to replace Pastor O’Donnell’s stash.
Happy Easter!
*
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Drifts
Hear the story read by the author.
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. All week long Normal had been bombarded by a late winter snowstorm, but Sunday morning the sun rose in a clear blue sky. The little church looked like something out of a painting, draped in a pristine blanket of sparkling white. Most of the congregation arrived for worship in good spirits, delighted to be out and about after so many days cooped up inside.
The one person who wasn’t charmed by the beauty of the fresh snow was Tammy Billings. She and her husband Ralph, the head usher, arrived at the church extra early that morning. Ralph was the one who had to shovel the thirty-foot sidewalk leading from the parking lot to the church entrance. Ralph was fifty-nine years old and Tammy worried about him over-exerting himself.
Ralph had no such concerns. He liked a little physical labor in the crisp winter air. “Gets the blood flowing,” he said.
Ralph had cleared about a third of the walk when Pastor Henry O’Donnell and his teenage daughter Katie pulled into the parking lot. Tammy met the pastor as he got out of his car.
“Good morning,” O’Donnell said. “I knew Ralph would be here hard at work already. You can always rely on good old Ralph.”
“Yes you can,” Tammy agreed. “But that’s a lot of snow for one man to shovel. Do you think you could give him a hand? He won’t let me because of my carpel tunnel.”
“I would,” O’Donnell said with an apologetic shrug, “but I’m wearing my good leather shoes.”
“I’ll help,” Katie volunteered. She wasn’t a fan of hard labor so early in the morning but she liked Ralph and hated to see him working when everyone else was standing around.
O’Donnell smiled with pride as he watched his daughter and Ralph shovel the walk together. I’ve raised a good kid, he thought. If more parents were better roll models for their teenagers it would solve a lot of problems in this country.
Then he looked at his watch. “How much longer,” he called out. “I have to start preparing for my sermon pretty soon.”
It was only a few more minutes until Ralph and Katie had cleared the path enough for O’Donnell to get into the building without damaging his good shoes. As the two of them stood leaning on their snow shovels and surveying their handiwork, Ralph pointed at the mound of snow they’d created and said, “what say we turn that into a snow sculpture after church? We could make a big dragon or something.”
“Cool,” Katie said with a grin.
After church was over most of the congregation gathered in the social hall where Tammy had whipped up a batch of hot cocoa in addition to the usual coffee and tea. Four year-old Mary Boyer knelt on a couch, her nose pressed to a window, watching Katie and Ralph sculpting their life-size snow dragon by the front walk.
She ran over to her father, Kevin Boyer, and tugged on his pant leg. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” she cried. “I want to build a snowman!”
“Maybe later,” Kevin said. “I’m having some cocoa.”
Kevin’s wife, Jill, gave him a stern look. “Go play with your daughter.”
“Yay,” Mary shouted. Kevin grumpily slurped down the rest of his cocoa and took Mary out behind the church.
“Let’s make a unicorn!” Mary exclaimed. She had been inspired by the dragon to think beyond the typical snowman made of three stacked balls. Kevin agreed and they began mounding up snow to form the body. For practical purposes they would only sculpt the unicorn from the hips up.
As the creature took shape, Kevin’s grouchiness vanished. He got caught up in the artistry of the task and began to sculpt the figure into an ever more realistic form.
“What should I do, Daddy?” Mary asked.
“Why don’t you add snow to the flanks,” he replied as he carefully molded the head.
“What’s the flanks?” Mary said.
“The sides.”
Mary started slapping handfuls of snow onto the flanks of the unicorn. But she quickly grew bored of the mundane task. “I want to help with the head,” she said.
“No, honey, why don’t you make the tail,” Kevin mumbled.
Mary didn’t want to make the tail but she knew the look on her Daddy’s face. The unicorn was now his project. She decided to go make her own snow sculpture, one that would be bigger and cooler than the unicorn.
That mission was derailed, however, when she spotted a round plastic sled leaning up against the church building. Suddenly sledding sounded a lot more fun than building a snow sculpture. She took the sled over to where snow had drifted up against the church’s tool shed forming a slope just the right size for a girl her age.
A bit later, six-year-old Tyler Park trudged by Mary’s sledding slope.
“Want to sled with me?” Mary asked.
“That’s not much of a hill,” Tyler replied. “I used to race bobsleds with my Dad. We would sled down huge mountains that were really steep. We’d do jumps and loop-de-loops and everything.”
“Really?” Mary said.
“Sure,” Tyler nodded. He had a rather active imagination. “If we had a mountain around here I’d show you.”
“What about the roof of the church?” Mary asked. “It’s not a mountain but it’s pretty high and steep. If you sled down the side you could jump the sled over to the roof of the tool shed, then slide down onto the snow drift.”
Tyler studied the route Mary indicated. “I guess that would be cool,” he said. “Too bad we can’t get up on the roof.”
“Sure we can,” Mary said. “Follow me.”
Mary led Tyler around to the side of the church where snow was mounded on top of the garbage bins to within two feet of the eaves. She clambered up the snow bank and pulled herself onto the roof. Not one to be outdone by a four year-old girl, Tyler followed.
They made their way up the slope of the roof to just below the peak. Tyler stood there, the plastic sled under his arm, surveying the proposed route. It looked a little steeper from this angle and the gap to the shed was wider than he had thought.
“Well,” Mary said. “Go ahead.”
“Just a minute,” Tyler snapped. “A real sled racer plans his race carefully.”
“Oh,” Mary said, suitably impressed to know a real sled racer.
Meanwhile, Pastor O’Donnell stepped out the front door of the church with his cup of cocoa. He called to Ralph, who was at that moment sculpting the dragon’s left wing with Katie.
“I’ve been wondering,” O’Donnell said. “There’s a lot of snow up on the roof. Do you think it’ll be a problem?”
“I suppose I could go up there and shovel it off,” Ralph said.
“That would be great,” O’Donnell replied around a sip of cocoa.
When Ralph climbed up on the roof a couple minutes later he was shocked to find two children standing there with a sled. “Just what do you two think you’re doing?” Ralph asked.
“Tyler’s going to sled down the roof of the church, jump onto the shed and then slide down the other side. He’s a real sled racer,” Mary said.
“Oh no he’s not,” Ralph said. “Give me that sled and get down from here. The roof is much too dangerous for kids.”
“Aw, shoot,” Tyler responded, quickly handing the sled to Ralph. “Oh well, come on Mary.”
Ralph watched to make sure they got off the roof safely. He shook his head as he looked down at the sled path the children had planned. “Crazy kids,” he muttered.
Still, it might have worked. The shed was perfectly in line with the roof. The sled would probably clear the gap with ease. And it would then be a simple matter to ride down onto the snowdrift. Not something a child should try of course.
But, Ralph thought, I’m not a child. He looked around to make sure nobody was watching. Tyler and Mary had gone back inside for cocoa and Kevin was absorbed with putting the finishing touches on the snow unicorn.
Ralph set the sled down and hopped on. It immediately plummeted down the church roof. It made the jump to the tool shed just as planned, bouncing once then rocketing down the drift.
The bounce, however, threw Ralph off balance and the sled began to spin. The spin caused it to arc off to the left as it came off the slope.
The sled had gained quite a bit of speed on its journey down the roof. It skipped across the expanse of snow-covered lawn, still spinning out of control, and plowed right into the snow unicorn just as Kevin was fixing an icicle into place for its horn. The sculpture exploded in a shower of snow that blanketed Kevin. Ralph did two summersaults and came to a stop on his back laughing uproariously.
Meanwhile, up on the roof, Ralph’s little ride had disrupted the integrity of the snow cover. A big chunk slid off and landed in a pile on the ground. The vibrations caused a similar chunk on the other side to come loose.
Out front Pastor O’Donnell was just about to suggest to Katie that a dragon may not be the best sculpture for in front of a church when the dislodged snow cascaded down on his head. He stood blinking in shock as steam rose from the dissolving lump of snow in his cup of cocoa.
He looked down. His nice leather shoes were ruined.
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