Err… yes… hmm… I… um… nearly forgot. Yesterday marked the second anniversaire of my little thumbtack on the great big map of the internet. I would have updated the page with a new background, et al., but I was nowhere near a DSL line or anything even remotely resemblin’ one. I was, as a matter of fact, in W—–, TN. My friend M— recently moved into a house on a farm up there and it was in dire need of rejuvenating, so one of my Mitbewohners, B—-, and I went up there to strip off old paint and roll new paint on. We got up there early Friday night, but in these latter days, early night is hard to distinguish from late night, and this phenomenon is doubly so when you’re in the valley. As I drove deeper into the valley from the interstate, fearing that I was lost forever in the S—– Valley, I heard a loud thump on the side of my car. The last time something hit me on the side of the car like that, it was a dog running out into the road. I figured it was a rock this time, but it turned out to be an egg, launched from the shadows of a farmyard. Curse those chickens with bazookas. Anyway, I finally found M—’s house, which, surprisingly, was just where he said it would be. Dogs started barking as I pulled into the drive, and two men were sitting out on the porch swing. The dogs, Lady and Bear, left off barking after I cut the engine. Two fellers were sittin’ on the porch swang, but neither of them was M—. As it happened, one was his roomate, C—, and the other was a good ol’ boy who’d lived there in the valley for years and years and years. Charlie, as we’ll call him, had a great many stories of the valley to tell me the next day when he and I cleared brush piles from the yard. He pointed out the old coal mine and the vacant lots where bootleggers had used to live. Charlie learned how to make moonshine whiskey when he was twelve, and he carried on the valley tradition for years and years. Eventually, though, the pressure from the revenuers was too great to continue. Charlie met M— on a Sunday afternoon when M— pulled up into his front yard, introduced himself as the new associate pastor at the local Presbyterian church, and asked Charlie to what he was up. Charlie was going to get some beer from the Phillips 66 at the crossroads. M— said that he didn’t need to do that, as he had five beers in his fridge. Charlie told M—, Son, you’re my kind of preacher!
Yesterday was also the birthdays of two friends of mine with whom I went to church and school when I was in N—–, FL. They are respectively twenty-seven and twenty-six years of age. Both are now married and have children, and I haven’t spoken with them in months thanks to only being home once in the last half-year. However, I am going home again this coming weekend, and I will see them and the rest of my church family at the Trinity Presbyterian Family Advance. Miss Sarah’s going to go along and meet my father and brothers (and see again the womenfolk of the family with whom she is already acquainted). I can hardly wait.