A Semi-Divine Comedy

I lost track of singer Ray Stevens years ago, despite my affection for his fanciful story about Ahab the Arab and his clunky little camel named Clyde.  That meant I missed his tale of the Mississippi Squirrel Revival,  another funny song and a cautionary reminder to children of all ages: don’t take your critters to church!

When I recently was introduced to The Squirrel Revival, I laughed myself silly and then remembered another story about members of a congregation, a clutch of Pentecostals from the Texas Panhandle who tried to outrun the Devil on their way to Florida. Long before they reached the Sunshine State, they ended up wrapped around a tree in Vinton, Louisiana, while local cops stood around trying to figure out why they were naked.

A few years have passed, but the story’s just as funny today as it was back in 1993. Even some Baptists and Methodists in the area – folks who tend to take their religion pretty seriously – have been known to keep their clipping of the story close at hand. I saw the article tacked onto a refrigerator in Idalou, torn rather than clipped from the paper and starting to yellow with age. But there it was, bearing witness to the best part of the story – that it’s all true, every living word of it. Well, except maybe for those conversations the preachers had with the Devil. But no one’s even sure about that.

Here Comes Santa Cat!

Laugh at the antlers if you will, but laugh at your peril. That business-like look in the eyes of my beautiful calico is very real. Her name is Dixie Rose (short for Dixie-Rose-Center-of-the-Universe-and-Queen-of-all-She-Surveys), She loves Christmas, and she intends to be ready when it arrives. Do not stand in her way.

Dixie arrived at my door as an unloved, four-month-old stray, and quickly became my first real pet. As a child I received a small painted turtle, which met a most unfortunate end, and a birthday puppy, but the pup lasted only hours. A tiny but exceedingly enthusiastic black Cocker Spaniel, he terrified me and was sent packing.

Later, I raised a fox squirrel and laughed my way through four years with a prairie dog, but my relationship with Dixie Rose is of a different order entirely. I believe her to be the most beautiful and most clever creature on four paws. I don’t think she’s the most spoiled creature in the world, but we’re working on it – diligently.

The Time of Our Lives

Reminders about the end of daylight saving time have begun to crop up, opportunities for a little congenial and inconsequential grumping in the midst of Eurozone crises, premature snow and political theatre. Some wish “the longer day” would be made permanent. Others consider the fuss over “falling back”  nothing more than a relic of another time, like barn-raisings and butter churns.

The annual discussions are repetitive, and predictable as the seasons. Does our clock manipulation save energy? Should it be standardized across the country? Does it help or hurt school children?

I don’t think definitive answers are possible, and I personally don’t care. Like an old-fashioned farmer, I work by the sun, not the clock. Grandma liked to say she worked from “kin to cain’t” – from the moment when the first bird took flight into the dawn until the last light faded against the hills – and I love embodying that part of her tradition. Still, living as I do in a world of clock-and-calendar sorts, it’s important to take their realities into account – including the transition back to “standard” time.

Being There

When we moved into the house my parents built in 1958, it looked much as it does today. There were no trees, of course.  No roses had been planted and no basket of geraniums hung from the lamp post, but the shutters, the color of the siding and the roof shingles were nearly identical. Even the fire hydrant was there, blooming brightly red in the front yard, a reassuring token of suburban security. 

The hydrant was to become a focal point of our life, but if you’re imagining on-going struggles with neighborhood dogs or conflicts with the city over improperly installed water lines, you’d be wrong. The reality was quite different.  Placed conveniently across the lawn from our kitchen and dining room windows, the hydrant  became a stage for pure entertainment, as well as the source of a surprise or two.

Rain, Rapturous Rain

Even with the Day of Judgment drawing nigh, my neighbor laughed as she unloaded twenty pounds of dog food from her car.  “Shoot,” she said. “I’m always looking for a reason to put off doing laundry or going to the grocery store. The end of the world seems as good a reason as any.”

Poor Harold Camping. When he predicted Jesus’ arrival back on earth in 1994, all he got for his trouble was a messianic no-show. The reason, he explained, was a slight mathematical miscalculation. After tweaking his figures, he decided to give it another go and announced this time it was for real, this snatching-up of the saved and destruction of the damned. The day would be May 21, the time, 6 p.m. local. Be there or be square, as the saying goes.

At that point, it was open season on the man and his beliefs. Like my neighbor, everyone (other than the good Reverend’s followers) was ready to have a little fun at Camping’s expense, especially after the deadline had passed. The Huffington Post published Nine Ways to Tell the World is Over, a typically-Huffpo-like but still funny list that included Sean Hannity going through with waterboarding, Donald Trump shaving his head and the Cubs winning the World Series. Time magazine tried to get in on the fun with their list of the nine best Apocalypse Not Yet tweets.  Given the nature of Time and tweets, most weren’t really funny, but I did laugh at the message from Jesus, who defended his right to run the Apocalypse by tweeting, “It’s not over until I say it’s over”.