Sigh of Sweet Relief

Esther Essofigus does not have cancer. I found that out a few days ago. She and Stan are hugely relieved, I'm sure. It is sometimes hair-raising to be a pastor because I worry about Smalltown church members' health issues right along with them. But Esther's tests came back fine. That spot or shadow on the liver was nothing of concern. Whew! I spent a happy time yesterday evening hanging Advent greens with Esther, Stan, and others. (That's Esther at the far right in the picture.) We all hung greens, then reds too. Red Christmas ornaments and poinsettias got intertwined with the Christmas tree and the greens circling the Advent wreath. There were also pine cones nested in the greens, so that would qualify as "Hanging of the Browns." Not to be confused with the Cleveland football team, which does not deserve hanging.

After watching the church sanctuary get festooned with garlands of greens last evening, I took today off and chatted via computer with my friend Shane. Shane was my first manager at HiTekk when I worked there. Shane is nothing like me and maybe that is why we get along so well. He has sandy brown hair with a receding hairline, wears gold-framed glasses, and is about six feet tall and slender. His politics are the polar opposite of mine. I loathed the sight of him when we first met so our friendship is something of a miracle. On one occasion when I was conducting sales training for young HiTekk sales newbies, I had a minor issue, the nature of which I no longer remember. I was tired -- conducting training eight hours a day is tiring -- and I guess I was whining about the problem, or at least Shane thought I was. He listened to me politely as I described the issue, but without saying much. Shane is not a sympathy-giving kind of guy. A few days later I mentioned the dilemma again. He inquired, "Did you get over yourself yet?" By this time I had learned that with Shane I had better give as good as I got. I narrowed my eyes to slits. "I will get over myself the day you get over yourself, SHANE!" He threw back his head and laughed demonically. "BWAAH-HAHAHAHAHAH! Never!"

Before I left, I told him he was so low he could play handball against the curb.

He was just as tenderhearted when I was a new sales rep myself and he was my new manager. I complained to him in the first week because I was getting all these calls for esoteric HiTekk accessory items and did not understand the lingo. I told him the requests sounded like, "Do you have a Whingleberry that fits into my Dickory-Dock?" Shane laughed. "You gotta watch those Whingleberries. That sounds like a strawberry on steroids."

Some people take getting used to, and for me Shane was one of them. But we have been good for each other. I have learned a certain toughness from him, and he has learned new methods of relating to me. We give and receive help in strange ways sometimes.

Gettin To Know Ya, Lola

Shown in photo: Lola Flushpoole dressed as a witch for a church Halloween event, with Billy-John next to her who refused to wear a costume. He thought his own face and outfit were enough.

I had a meal with Lola Flushpoole after our church's Annual Meeting today. I told her that after the stress of that meeting, I was in the mood to get drunk. But since I'm in a church that frowns on alcohol, I would get drunk on iced tea. We went to Garza's Mexican Cafe which has Smalltown's best south-of-the-border cuisine and iced tea, on which I did indeed get drunk. Caffeine intoxication is almost as good as the real thing. What's more, it is safe to drive home afterwards.

Lola has a massively high IQ and writes music on her computer using a special software program. These piano pieces will be published soon. She also plays music with as much skill as she composes it. She just celebrated 60 years as a church musician. As a bonus, she also sews beautifully.

Lola sent me the following email recently which I reprint here pretty much verbatim. After reading it I concluded that God broke the mold after making Lola.

"Dear Irreverent Reverend,

I've decided I worry too much. I finally got the answer in the middle of the night to a question I missed on a test in high school. It was an I.Q.test, and the answer was multiple choice.
The answers were : "Jane Eyre", "Lorna Doone", and "Les Miserables". The question was:

"Jean Valjean was the hero in what novel?"

I not only did not know the answer, I was incensed that they would expect a girl from a small South Texas town to know it. When I finished the test, I went to the library and looked up all the answers to all the questions I knew I had missed. Of course, that involved reading Lorna Doone, Jane Eyre, and Les Miserables, which probably didn't hurt me; and, when the test scores came back, my I.Q. was perfectly fine (according to the experts) so I never pursued the inequity of the test.

Flash forward to college. Same darned test, word for word. This time I knew the answers. Flash forward again: Called to the Dean's office. Scared. The Dean wanted to know (as did the president and the Board of Regents) why, since I had the highest I.Q. ever recorded in that college, it was so well hidden. I confessed. They had meetings. They decided to let me keep my I.Q., since looking up the answers indicated a high degree of something or other, if not exactly intelligence. Flash forward to last night. Suddenly I knew! I should have known about Jean Valjean because of the word "hero". Jean is a man's name only (or particularly, anyway) in France; hence the connection with Les Miserables. Darn!

Has my life been a meaningless shambles? Should I confess my failings to the Dean? (Nope. Dead) the Board of Regents? (Nope. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead). You? (Probably not, since you come perilously close to being as, um, unusual as I am, and would begin your own set of ruminations.) Who, then? I know. I'll tell Jacques. He speaks French.

Editor's note: Jacques is her two-year-old grandson.

The Craig Ferguson quote I wanted to share with you was: "Before they close Shea Stadium down, they wanted to have one last Billy Joel concert. That thing's old and disgusting. It reeks
of stale beer. The stadium is even worse". Right below that, there was an ad for a new type of Hallmark Card. There was a picture of George Bush, saying "Celebrificate a Person's Bornfulness". I thought that was funny, too --- not in a political sense, since I am hopelessly apolitical; but because it reminds me of eduspeak, which I never quite learned, even after lots of years of teaching.

L.F."

Only Lola could have created this. It needs no further comment from me.

Lola Flushpoole rides again

Lola Flushpoole, church piano accompanist, always has a new idea coming down the pike. I saw her yesterday, of course, during Sunday worship. Yesterday was apparently Pastor Appreciation Day. I did not know that until Lola told me. Lola's husband, Marvin, is a retired pastor. Lola asked me, "Do I have to appreciate Marvin today?" She then concluded that she would at least tolerate him gracefully.

Lola shares my love of mystery books. She told me she had hoped to give me all her old Agatha Christie mysteries until she learned I already had a full library of them. She has saved hers to read in her old age, but she said, "Now I have reached my old age and I still remember the solutions. So sad. I had hoped for a little more fog by this time."

Nutty Navigation

Sophie Yelicich is another church member who tells interesting stories. Today at Sunday's service she told us about the new GPS navigational system in her car. As I have directional dyslexia, I know how convenient they can be. Never be lost again! Throw away your low-tech inanimate road maps! Sophie, however, had had trouble with her GPS and did not know if it was electronic error or operator error. She announced before Sunday worship, "I was driving to Fort Worth and suddenly that woman's voice instructed me, 'Turn left.' I was high up on a freeway bridge with concrete on either side of me so I yelled back, 'YOU turn left!'"

Interlude

My Great Grandma Coia was always up to something. One overcast Sunday morning she was walking to church in her hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. She had on a freshly ironed, red print dress, her best shoes, and a red hat. She was using an umbrella as a walking stick. As a devout Catholic, Grandma Coia rarely missed Mass. My parents were accompanying her as guests at her church that day so they walked with her and witnessed what happened.

The elastic broke on Grandma's bloomers and they fell down around her ankles. Grandma immediately kicked the bloomers high into the air, opened her umbrella, and caught the flying pants. She clicked the umbrella shut and kept right on walking.

Sunday Power

An elderly man, one of the church's trustees, came up to me after the worship service was over and said, "This is kind of personal but I really felt the Holy Spirit in worship today. I haven't felt that way before." Then he shed a tear or two. I was deeply touched, and I'm glad we have that kind of worship at the Smalltown church.