Life Goes On (8 page)

L
abor Day has descended and people are finding their way back to church after their summer hiatus. Sunday school classes are resuming, with one exception. The Live Free or Die Sunday school class, founded by Robert Miles, Sr., in 1960 to guard against Communist infiltration in the meeting, has closed its doors. Dale Hinshaw had taught the class the past four years after Robert Miles, Sr., left in a huff to join the Baptist church. It's taken four years for people to realize that an hour with Dale Hinshaw is a bad way to start their week.

The class has been losing membership for several years, it being difficult to get folks worked up against the Soviet Union after it no longer existed. Dale had made a valiant effort to draw the class's attention to other threats, such as Democrats and Unitarians, but without much luck. He grew bitter about the congregation's lack of hostility. “For crying out loud, why even go to church, if you're not gonna fight the Lord's enemies?” It saddens Dale that people have lost their passion for true godliness.

With the official closing of the class, the four remaining members invaded Judy Iverson's young-adult class. Suddenly, the prospect of teaching the children with Alice Stout didn't seem as daunting and she asked if we could switch classes yet again. By then, I had tired of flannelgraphs and trying to explain to the children that God hadn't really ordered the deaths of entire nations of people. So back I went to the young adults and the remnants of the Live Free or Die class.

Dale couldn't bring himself to sit under my instruction and began attending the women's class, which meets in the basement around the noodle table. On the first Sunday of the class, he read aloud from Paul's First Letter to Timothy, that women should learn in silence with all submissiveness, then tried to take over. But Fern Hampton, a retired schoolteacher, was fortunate enough to have taught back in the days when teachers knew how to apply pain to various parts of the body to achieve a desired result. She gripped the back of Dale's neck, causing him to go limp as a noodle. She raised him from his seat, marched him up the basement steps, and deposited him with a thud at the door of my classroom.

I use the word
classroom
loosely. When I had proposed we begin a new Sunday school class for the young adults, I was met with stiff resistance. Why, the argument went, we already had perfectly good Sunday school classes, one for the men and one for the women. Why couldn't the young adults attend those classes? What made them so special that they needed their own class? That was the problem with this generation, they wanted everything to revolve around them. Besides, there was no place for them to meet.

But I persevered, and they finally relented when I agreed to clean the coatroom just inside the front door and hold the class there. Frank and I spent several hours that summer painting the room, making it presentable. This caused considerable ire among the remnants of the Live Free and Die class, who complained that they had never had a classroom of their own, and maybe if they had, their class would still be meeting.

The first day of Sunday school they shuffled into the coatroom, eyeing the young adults rather suspiciously. Stanley Farlow handed me a stack of dog-eared papers—the original typed pages of the Live Free or Die Sunday school curriculum, written by Robert J. Miles, Sr., himself in 1960.

“We teach from this,” he said. “We're on lesson twelve, ‘Better Dead Than Red.'”

“That's fine, Stanley, but we don't use a curriculum in this class,” I said, handing it back. “This is a discussion group. Why don't you put this someplace where it'll be safe.”

I welcomed everyone to the class, then shared the process I had in mind. Everybody in the class would be given small slips of paper on which they could anonymously write any theological question they wished us to consider. We'd put the slips in a hat and pull one out each Sunday to discuss, and perhaps together we could arrive at some insight or truth.

Stanley Farlow frowned. Truth by consensus was apparently not his preferred method of enlightenment. “Why don't you just tell us what the Bible says? Ain't that good enough anymore?”

“We'll certainly consult the Bible,” I assured him. “But we also
need to remember that Quakers believe truth can come from a variety of sources.”

I expected Dale to object, but he was slumped in the corner, still dazed from his encounter with Fern.

The upside of the class was the presence of Deena Morrison and Dr. Pierce, who've been coming to church together for the past two weeks. It is an unparalleled joy to look up from my chair behind the pulpit and see the lovely Deena Morrison in the company of a handsome, young man. And a doctor, no less.

Deena introduced Dr. Pierce to the class, we exchanged greetings, and I began distributing slips of paper and pencils for people to write their questions.

“This is a splendid idea,” Dr. Pierce said. “I've always wanted to participate in something like this.”

One by one, people passed their questions around to me, which I deposited in my lawn-mowing hat I'd brought from home. “Now remember,” I said, going over the rules once again, “we'll discuss only one question per week and we can't dodge a question just because we don't like it or it makes us uncomfortable.”

“Agreed,” everyone said, smiling enthusiastically.

In that moment, I had a vision of us engaged in serious reflection on the role of Scripture, the meaning of the Resurrection, and other topics that had plagued theologians for centuries.

I closed my eyes, reached my hand into the hat, stirred the papers around, then plucked one out. I studied the question before I read it. It was spidery, old-man writing.

“Read it out loud,” Uly Grant said, urging me along.

“I can't quite make it out,” I said. “Maybe I should pull out another question.”

“Let me see it,” my wife said, reaching over and taking it from my hand.

“What's it say?” Deena asked.

My wife studied the paper, then read, “Why can't we study lesson twelve?”

“I thought I'd already explained that,” I said. “This class doesn't use a curriculum.” I pulled another question from the hat and prepared to read it.

“I thought we was only gonna have one question a Sunday,” Stanley Farlow said.

“That was the intention,” I said. “But this is a little different.”

“Well, that's a fine how-do-you-do,” he said. “This class is only ten minutes old and we've already caught you lyin'.”

Catching the scent of a crippled teacher, Dale had revived and was moving in for the kill. “I think that pretty well shows us what we have to look forward to. I say we need a new teacher, somebody we can trust to tell the truth. I'd like to volunteer my services.”

“Sounds good to me,” Stanley Farlow said. Stanley Farlow had not uttered a half dozen words in my presence in the four years I'd pastored Harmony Friends, but now he wouldn't shut up.

The young adults paled. My mind raced, trying to think of a way to avert this catastrophe. I glanced around the room, seeking an ally in my looming struggle against Dale and his minions.

Dr. Pierce was the first to speak. “Mr. Hinshaw, I'd be all for you teaching the class, were it not against the Bible.”

“What do you mean, against the Bible?” Dale asked.

“Second Titus, third chapter, ninth verse,” Dr. Pierce said. “As all are not called to be pastors, so shall ye let them instruct the believers and not obstruct them.”

This seemed to give Dale pause. “I never heard that one before, but I sure don't wanna go against the Word.”

Although I knew the Apostle Paul had written one letter to Titus, I was unaware he had written a second one, but wasn't about to say so, since Dale appeared to be wavering.

I took advantage of his uncertainty and reached into my lawn-mowing hat to pull out a second question, which I read aloud to the class. “Why do some Christians oppose abortion but support capital punishment?”

It was a question I had pondered many times over the years, but had never asked aloud for fear of losing my job.

The men of the Live Free or Die class, who were generally fond of capital punishment, frowned.

“I'll tell you why,” Mabel Morrison said. “Because they don't know their keesters from a hole in the ground, that's why.”

There was nothing like having a liberal in the class to get the ball rolling.

A spirited discussion followed, with Dale and Mabel circling one another like two bulldogs, growling and nipping at one another. At first, I tried to mediate, but it soon became clear Dale and Mabel weren't interested in finding common ground. By the end of the hour, my stomach was in knots and I wanted to vomit.

Dr. Pierce shook my hand after class. “That certainly was bracing,”
he said. “I had no idea when I wrote that question it would create such a lively debate.”

Dale didn't stay for worship. He gathered up Dolores and left the meetinghouse in a huff.

The fertilizer hit the fan the next day, when Miriam Hodge stopped by my house to tell me she'd received a half dozen phone calls about the new class. “It was Dale and the men from his old Sunday school class,” she said. “They want the class shut down.”

“This isn't even their class,” I pointed out. They just showed up and tried to take over.”

Miriam sighed. “I know that, but they're really mad. Dale said Mabel Morrison called him a knucklehead and Dr. Pierce lied to him about a passage of Scripture. He wants them to apologize in front of the entire church next Sunday.”

“That will never happen, and if we insist on it, we'll probably lose her and Deena and Dr. Pierce and half the young adults in my class.”

“Dale said he's not coming back unless they agree to apologize.”

My heart leaped at the thought. “Are you serious? He said that? That he wouldn't be back until they apologize? That's wonderful. Let's quit while we're ahead.”

“It's not that simple, Sam. Dale phoned Fern and told her. She's demanded a special meeting of the Christian Education Committee be held this Friday. She thinks the class ought to be canceled, that it's too divisive.”

“This is crazy. Fern's the one who sent him to my class. Did he mention that he tried to take it over? He's the one who should apologize.”

“Folks are very upset, Sam. They don't understand why the young adults just can't attend the regular Sunday school classes.”

“Not everyone wants to be in a traditional Sunday school class. We have a dozen new people coming to Sunday school who've never attended before. If we tell them they have to go to Fern or Dale's class, they'll stop coming altogether.”

Just then a thought occurred to me, one so wicked I could barely voice it. “You don't suppose Fern and Dale did this on purpose, do you? They've been against this class from the start.”

“Miriam thought for a moment. “I don't think so. I try never to attribute to malice anything that can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

I chuckled. “Yes, you're probably right. But what do you think we should do?”

“You keep on teaching your class and let me handle the fallout. That's my job after all.”

“Thank you, Miriam. I appreciate your support.”

She shook her head. “I don't know why anyone would ever want to be a minister with people like Dale in the church.”

“Because there are also people like you in the church.”

She smiled.

“Thanks for stopping by, Miriam,” I said, giving her a hug.

The called meeting of the Christian Education Committee never materialized. It seems Miriam and Ellis Hodge decided to throw a last-minute cookout on Friday night and invite the entire church. Apparently, eating Miriam's food was a far more pleasant prospect than sitting in the church basement with Fern Hampton, and no one showed up for the meeting except Fern.

It was a lovely late summer evening at the Hodge farm. Amanda took the children for hayrides while the young adults mingled with the old-timers, laughing and eating and telling stories. Dolores Hinshaw came, but Dale stayed away, which was sad, though also a relief. Dr. Pierce and Deena were present, holding hands, which people tried not to stare at, though everyone did. And when they shared the same fork to eat dessert, we knew it was true love.

After supper, Ellis strung a volleyball net between two trees, and we divided into teams and played into the evening hours. I was the line judge, seated under the oak tree, watching the ball loft back and forth across the net, occasionally thinking of Dale and Fern off by themselves, stewing, while life went merrily on, oblivious to their indignation.

F
or the first time in memory, the Friendly Women's Circle Chicken Noodle Dinner has been postponed, causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the ladies of the church. They were ready to roll the second Sunday of September—the noodle freezer was full to overflowing, the pies and cakes were baked, the Tastee bread purchased, the plates stacked next to the silverware, and the tablecloths (embroidered in 1967 by the late Juanita Harmon before her grisly expiration in a stove explosion) stretched across the folding tables in the meetinghouse basement. I had even prayed over the noodles, asking the Lord to bless them to the nourishment of our bodies, that we might be strengthened to do His good work while there was yet time.

Then, on the Thursday before the dinner, Clevis Nagle from the Odd Fellows Lodge phoned the meetinghouse to inform us the Corn and Sausage Days parade had been temporarily delayed, on account of Harvey Muldock's 1951 Plymouth Cranbrook convertible giving up the ghost.

Why the parade and the dinner hinged on the well-being of Harvey's convertible is a mystery I've yet to fathom, but some questions are best left unasked, so I've kept out of it. Three weeks earlier, Harvey had stood during Joys and Concerns to ask for prayer for his beloved Cranbrook, so I knew something was wrong. Unfortunately, Harvey was in no condition to elaborate, as the merest mention of his car caused his eyes to swell with tears and his chin to tremble.

His melodramatics haven't sat well with Eunice, his wife. This past summer she'd undergone a hysterectomy, which Harvey had sailed through unfazed. He'd joked about her taking a Medicare vacation and wanted to know when she'd be back to cooking and doing the laundry. She'd asked him to mention it at church, so people would know, but he'd forgotten. But let his car not start, and he'd hammer the gates of heaven.

He'd gone out to start the Cranbrook in late August to ready it for the parade and found it wouldn't start. At first, he wasn't too concerned. He'd charged the battery, cleaned the points and plugs, and cleaned the carburetor, to no avail. By now he was starting to panic. He phoned his cousin, Bill Muldock, who came with his tools. Harvey watched from the sidelines, pacing back and forth, while Bill poked and prodded the engine, eventually diagnosing a bad generator.

He phoned various auto parts suppliers, who were singularly unhelpful, pointing out that generators for a 1951 Plymouth Cranbrook convertible were not in abundant supply. He finally phoned a company in California that thought they had one, but weren't sure,
so they'd have to get back to him. The next Sunday he was in church, on his knees, beseeching the Lord to intervene and heal his car.

His prayers were answered the week before the parade, when they called from California to tell him they'd found a generator in Montana and they'd be shipping it out just as soon as they received it. He mentioned this at the Monday night meeting of the Odd Fellows, when Clevis Nagle asked if the Cranbrook would be up and running in time for the parade. Harvey wasn't sure, but he didn't think so.

Well, Clevis said, they couldn't have the parade without the Cranbrook! Where would the Sausage Queen sit, after all? She couldn't very well walk the parade route now, could she? No, this wouldn't do. This wouldn't do at all.

They voted to postpone the parade until Harvey could assume his rightful place at the head of the line. This did not go over well with the masses, who wanted to know who had died and left the Odd Fellows in charge. So Kyle Weathers, this year's president of the lodge, held a press conference in which he reminded the citizenry that the Corn and Sausage Days festival was begun by the Odd Fellows in 1953 and that they would hold it whenever and wherever they wished, thank you.

But this year's real story was the selection of Clevis's granddaughter, Tiffany Nagle, as the Sausage Queen. It was a close contest. She was running neck and neck with Amanda Hodge, right up until the essay portion of the contest, when Amanda read her essay about the implications of Newtonian physics, while Tiffany speculated how wonderful it would be if everyone loved one another, then pledged
that if chosen as the Sausage Queen, she would devote her reign to working for world peace. As soon as she said that, Amanda was toast.

There has never been great interest in our town in Newtonian physics, though to be honest people aren't much for world peace either. It is the general consensus that there won't be peace until Jesus returns on the clouds in glory to ransom his elect. Therefore, any efforts to achieve world peace are viewed with suspicion, as a plot by the United Nations to usurp the sovereignty of God.

But the men of the Odd Fellows Lodge, who judge the contest, were moved by Tiffany's selflessness, or so they said. It also helped that in Tiffany's eighteenth summer, God had seen fit to bless her with a stunning physique. Newtonian physics was good, as far as it went, but Tiffany Nagle in a clingy gown talking about loving one another was a tough act to follow.

She was the second Nagle to win the Sausage Queen contest. Her aunt Nora had won it in 1974, before going on to capture the state Sausage Queen title the next year, then moving to New York and starring in an underwear commercial as a dancing grape. It isn't easy growing up in a family of overachievers, and Nora's shadow has loomed over Tiffany since she was a child. An ordinary person might break under the strain, but it's only made Tiffany stronger and more determined than ever to continue the Nagle legacy.

The generator for Harvey's car arrived the Wednesday before the rescheduled parade. The transplant was planned for the next evening. His cousin Bill operated while Harvey passed him the tools and wiped the sweat from his brow. Meanwhile, the Odd Fellows were gathered for a prayer vigil at the lodge, exhorting the Lord to guide
Bill's hands. After two hours, the generator was successfully installed, Harvey turned the key, and the engine roared to life.

He began to weep, sitting in his car, thinking about how close he'd come to losing his beloved Cranbrook. He phoned the lodge to report the good news, then waxed the Cranbrook to ready it for the parade.

The next day he drove to Tiffany Nagle's house to prepare her for the festivities. He showed her where in the Cranbrook to sit (feet on the backseat, buttocks on the trunk), how to wave to the crowds (palm in, a slight rotation of the hand at the wrist), and when to place her hand over her heart (during the recitation of the town poem and while passing the home of the late Horace Huffman, founder of the Harmony chapter of the Odd Fellows in 1929).

With the delay of the Chicken Noodle Dinner, the Friendly Women's Circle used the two extra weeks to sand and paint the kitchen cabinets, since it appears they won't be buying new cabinets in the foreseeable future. After two years, their Cabinet Fund had reached $53.78, which put them on a pace to have new cabinets sometime around the year 2375. So they took the $53.78 and went to Grant's Hardware and bought paint instead.

Since Quakers don't vote, but rather prayerfully discern the will of God, it took them three meetings to determine the Lord preferred pale yellow cabinets. I helped them paint. They had been hinting I should be more supportive of the Circle and its ministry. Fern Hampton had lately been reminiscing about Pastor Taylor's devotion to their noble cause. “Every Tuesday morning, there he was at the noodle table, flour up to his elbows, rolling out noodles. What
a godly example he was. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't mourn his passing. He's the finest man of God I ever knew.” This comes as an utter shock to those who remember that, when Pastor Taylor was alive, Fern tried three times to have him fired.

By the day of the parade, the cabinets were painted and the ladies of the Circle were good to go. Concerned my initial blessing had worn off, they asked me to pray over the noodles again, which I did, albeit reluctantly. Public prayer has never been my strong suit, as I have grave doubts about its appropriateness, prayer being something Jesus advised us to do privately, in our closets. I borrow most of my prayers from books, but though I looked far and wide, I couldn't find a noodle prayer and had to make up my own.

“Uh, thank you, Lord, for these noodles, and for the wheat of the field which gives us flour. Thank you for your creation, especially the chickens who laid the eggs so we can make our noodles, and for the, uh,” I paused, trying to recall the other ingredients of noodles.

“Salt and water,” Fern interrupted. “Flour, eggs, salt, and water.”

“And thank you for salt and water, and for the hands which prepared these noodles. Amen.”

“Amen,” the Friendly Women echoed.

“Now, Pastor Taylor, that man knew how to pray,” Fern said. “When he got done praying, those noodles knew they'd been prayed over. You might want to work on that, Sam.”

I assured her I would.

I left the noodle blessing and walked down Washington Street to the elementary school to watch people line up for the parade. My father was sitting astride our 1939 Farmall Model M tractor, just
behind Harvey Muldock and Tiffany Nagle, resplendent in her Sausage Queen gown and tiara.

At the stroke of eleven, Darrell Furbay blasted the fire siren, the signal for everyone to fall in line and pipe down. Tiffany rose from her Cranbrook throne and was escorted to the podium, next to the victory bell in front of the school, where she thanked her parents for their support, pledged her commitment to world peace, then recited the town poem written in 1898 by Harmony's poet laureate, Ora Crandell. She paused after that to dab her eyes, blow her nose, and regain her composure.

“I also want to thank the pork producers for my one-hundred-dollar scholarship, and even though I'm a vegetarian, I am honored to serve as your Sausage Queen and promise never to tarnish the reputation of your organization.”

People turned and stared at one another, aghast.

“What'd she just say?” Kyle Weathers asked me.

“That she's a vegetarian, but that she'll never tarnish the reputation of the pork producers.”

“A vegetarian!” he shrieked. “She's the Sausage Queen, for cryin' out loud. She can't be a vegetarian. It's against the rules.”

There were scattered boos throughout the audience. A sausage patty was lobbed through the air, just missing Tiffany but striking Harvey Muldock square on the chest. Clevis Nagle threw his coat over Tiffany to protect her and hustled her off the stage and into Harvey's car, which sped away, the Sausage Queen banner flapping in the wind.

My father, in a valiant effort to salvage the parade, crank-started
the Farmall and headed north on Washington Street with Bernie the policeman and the high-school band following in his wake. Unfortunately, Tiffany's shocking revelation had dulled the crowd's enthusiasm and most of them left for home, not even bothering to stop past the meetinghouse for the Chicken Noodle Dinner. Who could eat at a time like this?

Not being an Odd Fellow, I wasn't present at the emergency meeting they held to discuss Tiffany's scandalous disclosure, though the next day at church Harvey Muldock told me what happened.

“The pork producers are threatening to pull their scholarship unless Tiffany renounces vegetarianism and eats a sausage link in public.”

“That's ridiculous. They can't take back her scholarship.”

“They sure can,” Harvey said. “Tiffany signed a paper that she'd promote pork products and how can she do that if she's a vegetarian? They want her to resign and Amanda Hodge to take her place.”

But that wasn't the worst of it. The Chicken Noodle Dinner had been a bust, with fifty-three quarts of chicken and noodles left unsold. Fern Hampton was fit to be tied. “Why'd she have to go and say she was a vegetarian. She ruined it for everybody. I tell you, the kids these days think only of themselves. Selfishness, pure selfishness. She oughta be ashamed.”

I made the observation that vegetarianism was a dietary choice, not a mortal sin.

“And I lay this directly at your feet, Sam Gardner. You've been winking at sin ever since you got here and now look what's happened. The Chicken Noodle Dinner is in ruins and our church is
near collapse. If this isn't the judgment of the Lord against you, I don't know what is.”

I apologized to Fern for not preaching more against vegetarianism, then excused myself to go home.

A night's rest did not improve her disposition. She was still cranky at the Monday night meeting of the Christian Education Committee. On Tuesday, I learned Tiffany had been dethroned, and the Sausage Queen crown offered to Amanda Hodge, who kindly refused it, electing to side with the despised and oppressed.

I mentioned it to my wife at the supper table.

“That's pretty sad,” she said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Amanda Hodge is sixteen and gets the point. Fern is seventy-five, has been attending church all her life, and is dense as a brick.”

I thought about that for a moment. “It's probably not that simple. Fern cares about the church. She's just forgotten its purpose.”

“I wish she'd remember it,” Barbara said. “It'd make life a whole nicer.”

“But not nearly as interesting.”

I went for a walk that evening. We were on autumn's doorstep. It was getting darker earlier. A dead leaf skittered across the sidewalk in front of me, rattling like bones, pushed by a northern wind. As I walked, I reflected on parades, churches, Odd Fellows, and organizations in general, how we start with such noble purposes, but come to care more about our perpetuation than we do the noble passions that first united us. Thus, free-thinkers and vegetarians are always a threat and can be cast aside in our misguided quest for purity.

I'm not usually given to such contemplation. It made me tired and a little depressed, so I turned toward home and returned to my sons, who will one day have their own quests, but for now seem thankfully immune to the lure of self-preservation.