Thursday, July 31, 2008
William Murray - Dry Fork, VA
“Uncle John, where are you going? Why are you all dressed up like Billy Graham in that nice suit, and it being dirty as goat’s hind-end?” I asked John What’s-his-name. I knew he lived down the road a mile or two from our farm, but I could never think of his last name. He was as dirty as a football player who had just finished a game in a pouring-down thundercloud.
“Well son,” he explained, “I had planned to go to the preaching service at the church, but I stopped at my brother’s house. Someone had given him a billy goat. My brother bet my $10 that I couldn’t catch him by his horns and put his nose on the ground. I never pass up an opportunity to make good honest money, so I took the bet. That %$^&* goat had the power of a bulldozer running at full throttle, and instead of me getting his nose dirty, he came at me like a streak of God’s holy lightning and dragged me around some until he was exhausted.”
“Why were you going to church?” I asked.
“The preacher said I needed to get saved.”
“Saved from what?”
“He said I was going to Hell if I didn’t repent.”
“Why did he tell you that?”
“Well, I’ve been a bad boy. I was getting up my hay crop last Sunday when the Reverend came riding by in his big cadillac that he had just filled up with that expensive $4 gasoline and a eating a foot-long chicken sandwich he’d just purchased at the Golden Skillet Café. You know, that place down yonder? The one that stays open on Sunday so they can sell stuff to the church-going crowd after service? The preacher said I wasn’t keeping the Sabbath and that I was a sinner and the devil would get me.”
“Did the preacher invite you to come to church?” I asked.
“Of course he did, and he said I’d better come soon.”
“But you can’t go there with those dirty clothes!” I exclaimed.
“First, I’ve got a score to settle with that goat, for there’s an old saying that if you don’t’ succeed the first time, then try, try again,” he replied.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve also heard the saying, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool.’”
“Are you calling me an old fool?”
“No sir, but if I was you, I’d rather go to church than to play push and shove with a goat, and what did your brother do with the animal?”
“I don’t know right now, but come hell or high water, I’ll find him.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s the preacher’s fault. If he’d just prayed for me there in the field, I could have found religion there just as well as I could find it yonder in the church. Dang it all! I was aiming to collect the $10 bet and put the money in the collection plate, but it didn’t work out like I’d planned.”
“That’s the way life is, so what are you aiming to do now?” I asked.
I thought I heard him say something like he was getting ready to lose his temper and bend the goat out of shape. I thought of another question to ask, but I didn’t.
He was using some Sunday school words that I was taught not to use.
I breathed quietly, “that man had better use some words that’s tender and sweet for tomorrow. He may have to eat them.”
I figured if he was going to fool with that goat again, the goat was going to knock the fool out of him.
