Country Humor

Hurray for May!

By Jack S. Bray

Birds sing on every available tree limb. Bees flit all over the place, prospecting a smorgasbord of blossoms for nectar and pollen. Pastures are at their lushest right now. Crops that managed to get planted on time are up and thriving. As months go, May has been my favorite as far back as I can remember.

Among the May memories in my mental attic are spring baptismal services. I’m dating myself I know, but our church always picked a bright, sunny May day to go to the creek and baptize those converts who had come to the faith during winter. It’s not so much that we were warm-weather Christians, but even the most fervent new convert wouldn’t risk pneumonia by standing soaking wet on a creek bank in 20-degree temperatures.

And, I don’t know that we believed creek water to be more potent for the purpose; we didn’t have much choice. None of our country congregations owned baptismal fonts in the church house, nor had running water with which to fill it.

For that matter, in our neck of the woods, we didn’t even have a church house. Sunday services were held in the local school building. Our parents and grandparents wedged themselves into the seats us kids occupied during weekdays. I don’t recall anybody getting overheated about the separation of church and state. In most districts, at least a member or two of the school board were also deacons of the church.

But I digress. As far back as I can read or remember, my people have been Baptists of some stripe. In our community, we had Southern Baptists, Free-Will Baptists and Missionary Baptists, and a good part of the congregation drifted from one to the other without benefit of formal membership. My Dad used to say, if you have one Baptist family in the area, you have a church. Two families and you have a revival. Three Baptist families and you have two churches. All of these divisions of Baptists aspired to the same heaven; they just laid out slightly different routes to get there.

The one thing they all agreed on: proper baptism involved total immersion. And, since baptism required being doused in the creek, that’s why we waited until up in May to do it. Those penitents who had come to the faith in the wintertime just had to wander in heathen darkness until the weather warmed up.

That’s only one reason I remember Mays past with such fondness. I’m partial to the month for other reasons, too.

It occurs to me that some churchgoers—especially some Baptists—may take umbrage with some of what I have written. But you’ll notice that I do not play light with the Creator; only with some of the institutions we people have cobbled up in the motive of serving Him.

Besides, I think God has a keen sense of humor. After all, He made you and me, didn’t He?

Like dogs and cats    

By Mitch Jayne

The other day, I overheard a young mother talking to her neighbor down at the grocery, with her little kids in tow. She said, “These two are pestering us for a pet, and I guess it’s time. We can’t decide whether to get them a cat or a dog.”

I couldn’t help but grin at that. I would have grinned at the idea of a farmer saying, “We can’t decide whether to buy a car or a tractor,” or hearing someone say they’re torn between learning to play the fiddle or getting married. When it comes to these kinds of choices, we’re talking purpose, not whimsical coin tossing.

Watching the lady’s kids whipping around the store, playing hide-and-seek behind the potato chips—happy with everything they saw—I figured those two kids would probably need at least one dog and one cat apiece. In fact, they might need two of each, what with expectable wear and tear. But I didn’t say a thing. She probably didn’t want to hear about my own children’s growing up with dogs, cats, pet coons, coyotes, and a horned owl that, after school, walked with them from the school bus to the house.

The woman was doing either/or with cats and dogs, which made no sense to me. Dogs and cats are two varieties of education for any kid, and both of which are important. Robert Benchly, a funny writer of my youth, once said that every boy should have a dog “to teach the kid loyalty, friendship, and how to turn around three times before he lies down.”

I could add that a cat, on the other hand, will teach “respect me, or else.” Every kid needs to learn about animals (in case they should ever own a mule), and the art of patient observation: watching a cat stalk his own food, in case you forgot to feed him.

As every adult knows by this time, dogs differ in personality as much as cats. Getting a pup or a kitten for a kid is a crapshoot gamble for both. But, the learning experience is worth it.

Diana and I have a 15-year-old cat named Fred. The old cat just recently learned to purr as loud as a chainsaw, learning it from a stray kitten we took in. Fred has also rediscovered “pullin’ puddin’,” now making him an uneasy lap-perch these days. Fred is never intimidated nor picks a fight with any creature he meets, not bad traits for a child to learn from. So much for old minds not learning new tricks, a myth parents have to deny daily.

Yet nothing comes in a variety of moods, joys, energy and foolishness as a dog; their enthusiasm beats a kindergarten class for sharing any game you want to play, even if they make up their own rules and slobber a lot.

What’s best about letting a child learn the difference between dogs and cats isn’t the fun and games; it’s when they first notice there will always be two sides to every flapjack they’ll ever choose to put on their plate.

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