March 2017 – Mostly From Memory

Testimony Service

Testimony service was time set aside in each church service intended to give the saints an opportunity to stand and share what the Lord had done for them during the week.

I grew up in the latter part of the 20th Century and as a result, I was able to experience a few things that didn’t carry over into the 21st Century. Things like reading the newspaper everyday, taking pictures on film, and handwriting letters to send in the mail to the girl that you met at youth camp. Some things from that era I fondly remember, like three liter Cokes, and some things I am grateful to leave behind like long distance phone bills and dial up internet. Then there are somethings that I remember with mixed emotions, like testimony service.

Testimony service was time set aside in each church service intended to give the saints an opportunity to stand and share what the Lord had done for them during the week. In this original context, I’m sure testimony service was a great blessing to the church. What it actually became was something entirely different. Testimony service gave people with nothing to say a place to say it and a captive audience. Somewhere along the line people stopped testifying and started telling stories, or letting everyone know how hard life was. At it’s worst, a testimony service could quickly derail into a rant. It wasn’t always negative though, testimony service had the potential to be hilarious and would have been particularly entertaining had we not been trying to have church. It would have been the kind of simple entertainment you get from listening to people call in on the radio.

I had a cousin that was the king of testifiers. He would always start out with the obligatory, “I love the Lord tonight, thankful to be here”, which is probably where he should have stopped. But he plowed on through with, “You know I was thinking.” After which he would unleash a yarn of hunting and fishing tales, or peculiar things that had happened to him during the week. On the odd times that he did actually mention the Lord beyond his opening sentence, it was usually an improper application of scripture, which made it all the more uncomfortable. One time he had been thinking, as he let us know in his opening statement, about the song Dead Skunk In the Middle Of the Road by Loudoun Wainwright III. The skunk, which according to his interpretation of the song, had died trying to cross the road, and although he didn’t make it, he was doing his best to help other people cross. He wrapped up with something like, “And I just want to help others get to heaven.” He once testified for twenty one minutes, just two minutes longer than my first sermon.

There was another gentleman that really looked forward to testimony service. As a seven year old boy I would listen to this boisterous man with a crew cut ramble on in a disjointed way about events in history that didn’t seem to fit in what I learned from reading the World Book Encyclopedia. I have one of these testimonies forever burned in my memory.

“I love the Lord tonight”, this was how most of the testimonies began in my church, “I’m thankful to be here, thankful for a sound mind. You know I was thinking about the how the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria, and how they were loaded down with rubies and diamonds and gold, and how they sank in the harbor! I don’t want to be weighted down with things that don’t matter! I want to be like the Mayflower, that was able to make it across the ocean because she wasn’t loaded down! I just want the Lord to make me humble and ‘umble. Y’all remember me in prayer.”

Not long after that I had the word “humble” as a vocabulary word, which did irreparable damage to his credibility. Someone told me that this same gentleman called into the radio station and gave a similar testimony, only it went on air over the Classic Rock Station instead of the Southern Gospel Station. I know they were lying, but if it was true I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Eventually, our church voted in a new pastor, my Dad, and one of the first decisions he made was to get rid of testimony service, frankly, because it was no longer edifying the church. But old habits die hard and I recall an elderly man who was new to our church that would holler out during the preaching, “Pastor Wells! I need to testify! I got something to say!”

In many ways social media has replaced testimony service. It’s a place where people can sound off, which sadly, is what testimony service became. Social media allows people to feel like they’re being heard. Now you probably think that the church I grew up in just had a lot of crazy people, but they’re in your church too. If you don’t believe me, just have a testimony service.

Saddler

After a while our back yard looked like the bombing range.

My brother had a hound dog when we were kids. It was a Blue Tick and Walker mix. He had a big spot on his back the looked like a saddle, so Zach named him Saddler. I don’t think I ever saw that dog get tired. He was also strong as a freight train. He used to break his chain every other day. Zach finally got a him a logging chain. He didn’t break that chain, he just started dragging his doghouse around the back yard. When he started dragging the homemade wooden doghouse to the front yard Zach had to drive a three foot steel stake into the ground and chain him to that. That did the trick for a while, but then Saddler tried to tunnel his way out. Zach had to relocate Saddler ever other week because he dug so many holes. After a while our back yard looked like the bombing range.

For the most part though, Saddler ran free. He ran all over the town. He once brought home a ham from the store. I’m pretty sure that he just walked in and got it out of the meat case, but getting it out of the dumpster would have been a more impressive feat. He also brought home a bowling ball bag, complete with a 15 lb bowling ball.

The street that led to Jared and Creed’s house was lined on both sides with dogs. We pedaled our bikes furiously passed a Chow, then a whole pack of Pit Bulls (I never slowed down long enough to count them), and finally a monstrous Great Dane. I remember getting bit by a Pit Bull named Sheba, which makes her sound meaner than she was. She was also black, which made her appear more sinister than she was. This gamut of dogs struck fear in an eight year old heart. The fact that I was willing to overcome this fear is a testiment to the friendship that I shared with Jared and Creed.

When Zach got Saddler, I was no longer afraid. I have a strong feeling that Saddler may have killed the Chow. Perhaps this is why Saddler gained a reputation on our street. Saddler was not inherently mean, but I never saw him shy away from a fight. Even if he wasn’t provoked. One day Zach was playing in the woods behind our house that served as a barrier to a large cotton field. The lady who owned the Great Dane was walking him on a leash. Saddler couldn’t resist the temptation and Zach wasn’t fast enough to catch him. Zach watched from the cover of the forest as Saddler chased the Great Dane around the slightly overweight lady who was screaming and hollering. Eventually Saddler, after he had had enough fun, ran back to Zach who rushed through the woods back to the house.

It must have been Saturday, because Dad answered the door when the exasperated lady called to complain about Saddler. “Your dog viciously attacked me!” Perhaps it would have been courteous if Zach would have explained the situation to Dad, but how was he to know that the lady was coming to complain? Zach listened from the living room and snickered as Dad used a bit of diplomacy and a dash of humor to smooth the situation over.Even so, I don’t think that lady lasted too long in the community.

Zach eventually let Uncle James take Saddler coon hunting. He fought the all other dogs in order to get to tree the coon first. Once Saddler had been coon hunting, he didn’t want to do anything else. After a while Zach ended up selling Saddler to Uncle James, who hunted with him for a long time. Sometimes creatures are just born to do something, and Saddler was born to tree coons. We tried to make him a pet, but he was a hunter. Sometimes you just have to let things be what they are, you’ll waste your energy trying to change them.

Liars and Lies I’ve Been Told

Since the majority of the history in rural towns is oral, my goal is to give you a few tools to help you differentiate between what’s fact and what’s oral fiction.

I’ve spent much of my life sorting out which of the stories given to me as a child were true and which were not. It’s not as easy as you’d think, because much of the time the truth can be more outrageous than any liar’s tale. For instance, my Great Grandfather, Daniel Webster Wells, used to catch catfish out of the Coosa River that were four feet long. I know this is true, because I have pictures. I know that I shot my neighbor with a BB Gun too, as I got a terrible spanking for that. But there are some stories that I haven’t quite been able to verify. It’s these tales that make you wonder, not because of the bizarre content, but because of the source. Some people are fun to listen to, but not very credible. In the harshest terms, they are liars. There are so many types of liars that it’s almost not fair to group them all in the same category, but God isn’t fair, he’s just, and he decided that all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. I do not condone lying, but this is not a sermon, it’s more of a essay on the different types of liars. Since the majority of the history in rural towns is oral, my goal is to give you a few tools to help you differentiate between what’s fact and what’s oral fiction.

Some liars are habitual, and lie for lying’s sake. Jerry Clower said, “Some folks would rather climb a tree and tell a lie before they’d stand on the ground and tell the truth.” These liars have no motive for lying other than it’s just what they do. I had one of these type of liars tell me that there was a family who adopted a child from another country and they were having a hard time with the child because in the former country, yes meant no, and no meant yes. The same person also told me about an infant sitting on their mother’s lap as she was sewing. At some point the child cried out and the mother picked up the baby and held it on her shoulder, patting it’s back. The child instantly let out a gasp, but didn’t cry anymore, but the mother missed her sewing needle. Fifteen years later, the child now a young lady, complained of a pimple on her back. When her mother went to squeeze the pimple the needle shot out of the girls back. I know from experience that these habitual liars get mad when you don’t believe them.

My favorite type of liars are the entertaining liars, they lie because they have an audience. They don’t tend to get mad if you don’t believe them as long as you are entertained by the tale. Most of the entertaining liars I’ve met could have made honest careers as fiction writers. I had a liar of this ilk tell me that as he was driving to my house, he saw a prominent citizen in our community on his roof, dressed as Santa Claus, reading the newspaper while sitting on the chimney, apparently using the restroom. Now that’s pretty funny and outrageous, but if you knew the citizen, you would have found yourself wondering if it was true. Another time, the same talebearer told me that he had heard someone call in to the classic rock station and give the following testimony. “I love the Lord, and I’m thankful that he’s given me a sound mind. I appreciate the uplifting music that y’all play, it really blesses me. I just want the Lord to make me humble and (h)umble.” Of course, we knew who he was lying about, and it was funny, but also not unbelievable. You have to be careful with these entertaining liars, or you will establish their credibility by believing and repeating their lies.

Once, my brother, cousin, and I were building a fence at my grandmother’s place. There was a withered old man with a tracheotomy and cowboy hat who came out to watch us as we built the fence beside his residence. I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but as Zach carried the heavy post driver over to the next post, the old man stated that he had “once picked up a syrup mill by himself.” Now Zach, never been one to “enjoy a good lie”, was not about to let this slide, having recently spent a whole day making sorghum syrup. He dropped the post driver and said, “They ain’t no way you picked up a syrup mill by yourself.”

My cousin, who was quite a story teller in his own right, tried to calm Zach down and let it be, hoping to draw out more of the tale. “Just let him alone Zach, maybe he did.” And then to the old man, “How much did that syrup mill weigh?”

“He ain’t picked up no syrup mill Anthony.” I suppose liars don’t like to be called out, and soon the old man went back inside leaving us to our work.

Some liars will not retreat as easily when faced with the truth. I place these in the category of the ignorant liar, which is someone who doesn’t let their lack of knowledge keep them from teaching. These proud liars will be able to dominate any conversation on any subject with their wealth of knowledge. Some folks call them “Know-it-Alls”. Once I remember a conversation with a man about construction of a building in Childersburg, AL being halted after Indian artifacts were found during the initial excavation.

“I shouldn’t wonder that they found some Indian pottery, you can dig just about anywhere around here and find Indian pottery and arrowheads.” He said. This was true enough, I used to find arrowheads all the time in the cotton fields behind my house, but he took it further and capped his statement with, “Childersburg is the oldest city.”

I asked him incredulously, “You mean in the Coosa Valley? Or the State of Alabama?”

“Naw! Childersburg is the oldest city in the world!” He said arrogantly.

What makes these particular liars so annoying is that you can’t convince them of what is true. When you argue with a fool, you always lose.

Calling a liar in many cases will get you nowhere. Sometimes it’s best to keep your mouth shut. If someone is lying they’ll eventually trip over one of their own lies. If I feel like I’m being told a lie, I like to ask verifying questions. A liar will never disappoint you when you ask for details. It helps if you can remember these details and then ask again a month or so later. If you’re lucky, they’ll start in on a fresh set of details that contradicted the set from last month. Even better they’ll be unsuccessful in trying to remember the set that they gave you last month.

The last type of liar I’d like to mention would be the exaggerator. What might start out as embellishment, will turn into a full blown lie. I’ve been with people that are recounting a story of which I was an eye witness, and I find myself frowning because I don’t remember it that way. Or someone will tell a lie about something that they didn’t do and then say, “Ask Zane, he was there.” Which is another lie.

My mom was babysitting a child once who told her of all of the things that he’d stolen. My mother was disappointed and admonished the child that it wasn’t good to steal. He replied, “Aw, I’s just lying.” You don’t have to teach children how to lie, you’re supposed to teach them not to lie. If you are a liar though, you show your children how to lie. This is why lying runs in the family. There was a time when it was a shameful to lie, and people knew it was wrong. That must have been a long time ago.

Devil In The Ditch

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been whooped for playing Devil In The Ditch. It was my favorite game to play at church. Now before you think that I’ve been involved in the occult, let me explain the rules of this sinister sounding game. If you walked out of the front door of our church, turned left and walked about twenty five feet, you would come upon a ditch running parallel with the road for the full length of the church property. This was “The Ditch”. At the back of the church property it was shallow and got deeper as it reached the front where it made a sharp angle in the fork of the road. At it’s deepest, the ditch was about three feet deep. The rules of the game were fairly simple, whoever was in the ditch was the devil, everyone else had to jump the ditch without being tagged by the devil. If you were tagged, you were the new devil.

It was great fun. Part of the fun was knowing that you weren’t supposed to be playing in the ditch, namely because it was probably the most dangerous thing that we could have done. That’s the way with people, the more dangerous and risky, the more likely we’ll engage in it and call it fun. The other part of the fun was having to sneak to do it. Sneaking was pretty easy though, you know how parents get to talking to everybody after church. We had better chances of getting to play Devil In The Ditch if we didn’t stay inside and pester the adults. As long as we weren’t whining and interrupting conversations they didn’t miss us. It wouldn’t be until the first crybaby ran inside to complain to their parents that someone was cheating, or that they didn’t want to be the devil, or that they had sprained an ankle, that all of the parents would come barreling out of the air conditioned church into the sweltering heat to retrieve their miscreant children who had been busy ruining their Sunday clothes in the filthy ditch. Punishment would be doled out heartily to some children and sparingly to others, and it seems like not at all to some of the worst offenders.

As children we never gave a single thought to how dangerous this game was, we were only concerned about having fun. Since the ditch was about a foot from the road, any one of us could have been hit by a car. Although this was highly unlikely because there was hardly any traffic on that road. Aside from getting grass stains and mud all over our church clothes, we could have easily broken a limb as we tried to jump the ditch, which was quite wide in the deeper places. Fortunately, I don’t remember any major injuries sustained while engaging in this game.

After more than a decade in Youth Ministry, I’ve noticed that the thrill of the dangerous doesn’t go away as we get older. Now that we’re all grown, I doubt we are tempted to ruin our church clothes playing a silly game like Devil in the Ditch. But the games that we are tempted to play as adults basically all have the same concept as Devil in the Ditch. But the adult version is far more dangerous.