The Holy City

BudLiteGood morning, y’all. Another gorgeous day here in the mountains. It feels so good that I decided to push my morning constitutional to two laps around the grounds here at TackyToo. I try to remember,”it ain’t the distance, but the consistency”, but it’s hard with our hectic lifestyle. It’d be great if you could just have one long walk count for a week’s worth of inactivity, but it doesn’t work that way, at least for me.

These claims we see on the TV of a “minute workout”, just don’t seem to square with a thousand years or so of training information. As near as I can tell, without buying the program, the “minute workout” consists of running your guts out at top speed for a minute. Then you’re done for the day, go eat a pizza. At the risk of stroke, or heart attack, the “minute workout” fulfills the time allotment most of us want to devote to daily exercise. I just can’t see how it can be doing that much good. Particularly at the risk of aneurysm or worse. If I can find a way to get the program without paying for it, I might follow up further. Otherwise I’ll just do the tried and true, “slow and easy wins the race”.

Well, because of my extra lap, I cut my time a little closer than usual. I decided to attend church at the “Little Church in the Valley” this week. Partly because of my lack of time, and mostly because of the rumors I’ve been hearing. The Right Reverend Dale E. Bread has gotten himself sideways with the Elders again. It looks like the Right Reverend is on the way out. I absolutely hate it, in one regard. If the Right Reverend and the Bread brood totally move out of TackyToo, then I’m happy. I get to rent the trailer right away. Hopefully, to someone who is less trouble and more reliable with their rent check. If the Breads don’t move, then at some point Mulva’s Christian charity is going to kick in and I’m going to be on the hook for the rent and utilities again. I hate it when history repeats itself. Evolution says we’re supposed to be smart and learn from our mistakes. Supplementing a “serial philanderer” doesn’t seem like the smart bet to me, and, I am all about evolving.

Well, there wasn’t much evolving going on when I pulled into the parking lot of the “Little Church in the Valley”. I could hear Bubba Hoakum leading the choir in a hearty rendition of “Up From The Grave He Arose”, from out in the parking lot. As I took my seat, I wondered if the choice of hymns was Bubba’s subliminal message to all that he felt like he had been put down long enough, and now Bubba was about to arise. You don’t have to be inside of the Vatican to have high level intrigue and strategies. Bubba’s belief that it was time for him to claim his birthright had been stated to one all. Probably even to the the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread. What Bubba didn’t realize was that it didn’t matter what his lineage was, he would never be elevated to Pastor. Even in an interim basis. As kind and as good a soul as Bubba is, his die is already cast. He “didn’t have all that God gave him”, as Granny Waller used to say. No one felt that they could trust Bubba to give directions on how to get to the Walmart, let alone the Pearly Gates.

The Right Reverend Dale E. Bread brought a stick of dynamite to a house full of matches when he delivered his sermon, “Are You Willing To Face Your Past?” Cloaked within the sermon was the directive that “he who is without sin should cast the first stone”. It appeared that the Right Reverend was going to paint all of the congregation as sinners and then hope to receive the forgiveness card. I’d say that had a snowball’s chance in Hell, but stranger things have happened. Like what happened next.

Just when the altar call was made, little Devin Bread, the eldest of the Bread brood, broke for the altar and began contorting as if possessed by a Mexican jumping bean. The contortions played second fiddle to the glossolalia that followed. Now, to my untrained ear it sounded like a bunch of Spanish words mixed in with a lot of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednegos. Like I said, I have an untrained ear when it comes to Tongues. I can speak with a little more authority about snakes. I’m sure you’re not supposed to take a six foot timber rattler and swing it by its tail around and around your head like a whirligig. Little Devin seemed charmed though, or truly possessed by spirit. Based on my run ins with the little monster, I suspect it was the work of Beelzebub, but perhaps I judge too harshly.

More later.


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