Life Goes On

by Philip Gulley

  “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.

  Twelve

  Scandal

  For 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.

&nbs
p; 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.

&n
bsp; “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.

  Thirteen

  Hope Blossoms

  With the impeachment of Tiffany Nagle, life in Harmony has gone to Hades in a handbasket, to quote my wife. There was no one to sing the national anthem at the first football game, so Bea Majors sang, which is an appalling way to begin any endeavor. It not only turned the town against music; our football team lost by forty-three points.

  When Kivett’s Five and Dime held their fall sale, there was no Sausage Queen to model the latest fashions. Consequently, sales were off 15 percent and Ned Kivett was in a tizzy.

  Then the nursing home added a new wing and without the Sausage Queen to cut the ribbon, they invited Pastor Jimmy at the Harmony Worship Center to say a few words. He ended up preaching for half an hour, wrapping up the proceedings with an altar call and reminding the audience they could end up in that very nursing home the next day, off their rocker, unable to accept God’s gift of salvation.