a little lower than angels
is what the Bible states
am I and all thy children --
celestial delegates!
I wish I were seraphic
when I do stub my toe,
and not so diabolic --
as my words often show!
and so my day begins up here in Wendell, Idaho. on a four day visit to amy's sister kathy and hubby steve.
if i understand amy right, she wants to come up every weekend to visit her sister until they have to sell the farm in july. i initially put up quite a fuss about it, because the four hour drive is expensive and my tailbone would be throbbing by the time we arrived. plus their house is unheated this past winter and our basement bedroom was a virtual icebox. but all that has changed because i decided i would change my mind about the whole thing. instead of complaining and playing the martyr i decided to believe the whole thing is a jolly weekly holiday for us. so i increased my credit card limit to 1500 dollars. I cadged an old rocker/recliner to bring up to Idaho so I'd have some place decent to sit and rest my aching tailbone. and i bought a cheap ceramic space heater at walmart. turns out we didn't need the heater -- wendell was undergoing a heat wave when we got here this week, so the basement bedroom was actually a cooling relief. the rocker/recliner has been wonderful -- i can spend all day in it gazing at the flat idaho fields of alfalfa through the living room picture window. there are birds a-plenty winging their way through the manure-perfumed air, as the wide horizon fills with tumbling clouds just for my amusement. oh, and i stopped at the dollar store down in provo before we left to stock up on cheap sardines. i got five cans of sardines in louisiana hot sauce, and have relished ingesting a can every morning for breakfast. somehow it feels right to eat canned fish in a farm house in idaho . . . my life's summation, to be written on my tombstone should be: He Finally Ate Cheap Sardines While The Chickens Befouled The Back Porch.
we drove fifteen miles yesterday to the moribund hamlet of Buhl, just to buy ice cream. amy said they had the best ice cream she ever tasted, so i insisted we go get some. and she is right. it is the best i've ever had. while in buhl i spotted an orange spire towering over the town. i asked amy what it was and she said it was a hindu temple. having been married long enough now to know better i did not immediately pooh pooh her answer. but instead when we got back to the farm house i googled hindu temples in idaho, discovering there was certainly none in buhl. what there is is an old Odd Fellows Hall, built in 1922, and painted orange. i did not rub it in. so, good for me! -- maybe i'm learning how to handle this marriage racket after all.
now, as i gaze out on the back forty while tapping away on my laptop in my rocker/recliner, i begin to miss not having my usual can of sardines in louisiana hot sauce. because today is Fast Sunday, and we will be going to the wendall ward for 9:30 a.m. services. i will be bringing along my notebook to jot down my observations, and you, dear reader, will have the benefit of my keen scrutiny later this afternoon . . .
************************************************
Individual Income Tax Payments on Pace to Reach Record Level
the man inside the barrel with no clothes to wear at all
is no longer just a fiction or a piece of folderol.
for Uncle Sam is greedy and needs money by the sack,
and so he dings us one by one until our wallets crack.
I want to finance freedom, but these taxes are a joke --
how can I savor liberty when I am always broke?
i just had to write that after reading the above headline in the online wall street journal after coming home from church. here's what i wrote during sunday school in church today, based on the book of judges from the old testament:
after Joshua did pass
the Israelites turned into glass --
they shattered often due to sin
and let the philistines move in.
but when the hebrews did repent
a righteous judge was often sent
to set them straight and lead the way
all commandments to obey.
then the land had rest again --
as long as they stayed humble men.
i know i promised a full and scathing report on fast & testimony meeting in the Wendell first ward, but now i'm wondering if my observations are too bitter, cynical, and worldly to do any good or be considered a worthwhile literary endeavor?
believe it or not, it is not my intention to be cutting and sarcastic about anyone or anything. i just want to report what i see, what i hear, and what i feel. and to rejoice in the lushness and complexity of the english language while i'm using it.
there were ten people, plus the Bishop, who bore their testimonies this morning. rather than go through them one by one I'll just make some general observations.
seven women, one child, and two men. that's the breakdown. i've noticed over the years that women bear their testimony more often than men.
a woman in an orange polka dot dress said she wanted to walk with Jesus and not just bump into him occasionally -- which struck me as memorable.
an elderly woman in a red and white horizontal stripped sweater was effusively descriptive of her grandchildren, and then gushed "everything denotes there is a God!"
she also said "i'm so grateful i can go anywhere in the world and find church every sunday at 9 in the morning!" i'm still pondering that statement.
a man who had moved away from wendell thirty years ago got up to say he was back for his daughter's wedding. i lost the thread of his remarks after that.
sunday school, as i said, was all about the book of judges. i got off one nifty during class, by stating that Samson was a great entertainer because he brought the house down. didn't get much of a laugh. idaho people are rather solemn, i guess. you would be too if your state license plate motto was 'great potatoes.'
well, i guess that's all for now. the day is only half done, it being just 1230 p.m. but i doubt much more of anything will happen the rest of the day. i'll read p.g. wodehouse in my rocker/recliner until dinnertime at 4, then glut myself on beef, potatoes, creamed peas, and a flagon of that chocolate ice cream from Buhl, then sit comatose in front of the TV until 9, when amy and i will stagger to bed and sleep the sleep of the well-fed just.
tomorrow we head back to provo. to home. to smog.
insincerely yours,
heinie manush
No comments:
Post a Comment