Suddenly during the invitation portion of the early church service Sunday I had a flashback of my childhood at the First Baptist Church in Haileyville, Oklahoma. My older brother, Randy and I, sat through a decade of services directed by the Reverend Jim Boyd who enjoyed a long tenure as pastor of that church.  Boyd was a big ruddy Irishman with a shock of red hair and long freckled bony fingers.  His blue eyes were the color of a cold clear winter sky.  During most of his sermons, when speaking about some of the more serious sins, like cursing, smoking and a variety of impure thoughts—lusting in your heart and such, he seemed to be making eye contact with me and Randy and pointing his long, freckled, bony index finger in our direction.

Boyd had an interesting twist on the invitation portion of the service. His practice was to continue singing hymn after hymn until somebody, anybody, came forward to either receive Christ as their personal savior, join the church, or rededicate their life to Jesus. The old church building had no air-conditioning. Hand fans with pictures of biblical scenes printed on them were supplied by the local funeral home.  It was sweltering in that old building in the middle of summer and I can still remember sweating profusely during the seemingly endless sermons and the long punishing invitations that followed.

Randy and I both loved my mother’s cooking.  Every Sunday it was going to be either roast beef or fried chicken, usually fried chicken and it was without fail a culinary masterpiece.

Today as the invitation portion of the servcie began I was taken back to that old church house and I found my brother sitting there with me, twenty minutes or so into a midsummer Jim Boyd invitation.  It was clear that he intended to keep everybody in God’s house until somebody made the trip down that isle.  It would be the day that everything changed.

Randy and I schemed a lot.  We were a brilliant duo of thinkers and to this day we marvel at some of the brilliant ideas we had as devious little men.  Starving for that fried chicken and willing to do most anything to get it, my outlaw brother and I decided it couldn’t hurt to rededicate our lives to Jesus and in addition to this great benefit we would be perhaps fifteen minutes closer to that fried chicken.  In the next second we found ourselves strutting down the isle approaching the open arms and long bony fingers of Reverend Boyd.

What a couple of geniuses we thought we were that Sunday back in the fifties.  Over the next few years we must have rededicated our lives to Christ  twenty-five or thirty times, all the while rejoicing over our new found quicker route to the dinner table.

I have many fond memories of growing up in that church.  I still wonder at times if old Brother Boyd was onto us, but he never seemed any less excited to see one or both of us coming down that isle, sometimes we took turns.

That old church is gone now.  A few years ago before my dad passed away I drove by the old vacant lot where the church once stood.  Though there is nothing left there  but brush and tall weeds I can still feel our spirit there and the spirit of God there in that little Oklahoma town—in another lifetime, long ago.

The working title of this piece had nothing to do with the text, but I left it in anyway.  Its actually the title of an old George Jones song written long ago by Roger Ferris about a man who was mourning his divorce and the death of Elvis while drinking whiskey out of a glass shaped like Fred Flintstone.  The value of such nonsense is that it puts me in the mood to write stupid stuff.  Afterall, thats what I do!

Over time, as a society changes, new meanings are assigned to some lucky or unlucky words.  The ubiquitous use of the perjorative “fag” for instance is a perfect example of the social process of assigning new meaning to a word.  As a child when I heard the phrase “fagged out” it simply meant tired or exhausted.  In Great Britian fag refers to a cigarette or more accurately, the smoked butt of a cigarette.  Fag is kind of a funny word used in bad jokes, in locker rooms and in a derogatory manner. A “gay” man (are you with me) can refer to another gay man using the word fag with all of its negative intent but you cannot. But thats a whole nuther blog. There was a time when you could safely use the word “negro” but that changed with the times as the wheels of PC machinery turned and it became “black” and then “African American.” The word negro can now have negative connotations. You get the picture.

The meaning of some words have changed for me in a much more personal way.  In this particular instance, “irregularity.”  Up until till age thirty or so I jogged irregularly and I hunted and fished  irregularly. I read the newspaper, had lunch with my friends and attended church all with a certain degree of irregularity.

It was around that tender age of thirty that, without much warning and no apparent cause, I developed what my mother refers to modestly as “nervous stomach.” Suddenly a, up until that time,  little noticed feature of the anatomy of my southern region began interrupting my brain’s normal cognitive function and with impressive effectiveness went about making decisions on its own. Irregularity now had a new meaning, not in a Fag, Black, Gay way but in a much more real and vivid way.  And it was no longer just a word but now a vital issue.

Example: You are on your way home, driving peacefully,  from having over eaten at your favorite Mexican restaurant where you chose the double Chimichanga with extra chili and cheese, beans and rice, tortilla soup, queso dip, guacamole and a two inch thick stack of freshly made flour tortillas. Don’t forget the two baskets of chips and salsa and of course, the “piece de resistance” a sugar crusted sopapilla.

Suddenly and without warning your whole life is highjacked like an jet airliner taken over by angry Contra rebels headed to Nicaragua.  At this point nothing else matters. Nothing! The safety of your passengers, your plan for a side trip to the Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream on the way home all ignored or very decisively cancelled as you drive like Earnhart rounding the turn at Taladega gripping the steering wheel with vise like force and pressure, hair raising turns in front of cars that have now become the enemy, tiny beads of sweat forming on your forehead, pupils dilated and focused with all of your heart, mind and soul on reaching that glorious shiney porcelain oasis of purgedom.  It is in that powerful moment that I am reminded of the immortal words of the inimitable Butthead of Beavis and Butthead fame who once said; “spinxters rule, huh huh.”  It is certain that no human has ever uttered a more profound statement.

And please allow me to say that such episodes that don’t have a necessarily happy ending, if you get my drift, lend themselves to a true understanding of the real life value of leather seats.

Now lets end this blog on irregularity with somewhat of a Hitchcock twist.  On your way to work you stop off at the local convenience store and grab an extra large cup of hot coffee to go with the Sam’s size warm bran muffin you brought along for breakfast. Irregularity has not yet crossed your mind. You pull on to the expressway.  The rush hour traffic is heavy.  Suddenly you find your self at a stand still, no exit in sight, completely boxed into six lanes of cars. More than a mile ahead you can make out flashing blue lights.  An accident.  Not a single car moving. A dog barks in the distance.  And now— without warning—- the Contra rebels  storm the cockpit………

A word about Crispy Donut. Being without employment frees me to go about my day sort of willy nilly.  Its very freeing and redeeming to a lifelong nihilist and skeptic about well, most everything.  Crispy is its own little corner of the world, staffed by exotic little Asian vixens provocatively dressed even at five A.M.  At sixty-three they are less of a distraction than they would have been at say, twenty-five.  More important at my age would be regularity.  But their tendency to dress in that manner is not totally lost on me.  Those times when I  have caught myself staring I have felt compelled to say “oh, I’m just here for the donuts!” in an apologetic tone.  I’m never sure if the tip jar is where I should leave my dollar or if I should ask permission to reach across the counter and stuff it in their belt.  Who knew such dilemmas existed in retirement.

A word about the gastrocolic reflex as it relates to the Bass Pro Shop experience for men.

Any trip to the privy at a Bass Pro Shop will reveal the stalls all occupied.  Every time.  I’ve pondered this phenomenon of the bass fishing, game hunting culture of the deep south and can only find one similar world wide comparison.

When traveling in China some years ago we visited the Lingyin Temple of outside of Hangzhou, the largest Buddhist temple in south China.  The Buddhist Chinese traveled there to pay homage to the great golden Buddha, the centerpiece of this ancient world religion.  These purveyors of peace and tranquility came in relative silence to immediately occupy incense filled rooms and experience prayerful reflection.  Hmm.

Maybe there is some of that going on in the Bass Pro Shops bathroom.  The stall being a sort of a version of a prayer room or perhaps a variation on a confessional.  Incense, well, not so much.  These ministers of the faithful bass and game worshipers have travel from as far away as well, Shongaloo, to worship? at their Mecca, their Lingyin.

Does this arrival at their “Lingyin” somehow stimulate their gastrocolic reflex and send them reeling (pardon the humor) into a locked stall?  Or is it the only parcel of privacy available away from the throngs of worshipers?   A place of quiet reflection, of peace and serenity, or something.

But arriving there and finding all of the stalls locked is very unsettling when one is experiencing their own gastrocolic tizzy.  It makes me about as angry as I am at the architects that design the Mexican restaurants with one stall in the men’s bathroom.  Who are these people?