It’s hot, stifling hot in our beloved city, more like Dante’s Inferno than Statesville. If the heat keeps up much longer I’ll be writing stories about people sitting around in their underwear fanning themselves with wooden sticks that have funeral home advertisements stapled to them as they sip mint juleps and lament the loss of the old plantation, Bellpork, where the cotton fields were hoed and everybody danced and clapped and played the banjo while they sat under huge magnolia trees.
When it’s this hot in the south crazy things can happen like maybe the deputy shoots the sheriff over a game of croquet and an hour before Bob Luke goes to the gallows he finds out his wife was actually his half-sister and remembers he left a bag of groceries ( with milk) in the car. You might even see snakes in church.
I go to a large southern Baptist church in the city and we shun snake handling, end-of-world-visions and ladies with big hats and wide hips who sway and clap in the aisles--- but five degrees hotter and things could change.
This past Sunday was a scorcher but the sermon was excellent ( be vigilant, don’t drift away from obedience) but deep down I wanted our pastor to come down to the congregation, whip out a western Colt 45 pistol and say “ Look, numbheads! Git right or git out—don’t make me say it again!”
I know pistols aren’t allowed in churches in the south but nothing says “I’m serious about my theology” like a loaded gun. Shucks, if Pastor Cartin suddenly fired a shot into the ceiling right after the announcements and just before prayer I think we’d all be more focused, possibly enlightened--- maybe even speak in tongues.
This morning my air conditioner went out, 15 degrees higher and 10 minutes later I was overcome with a desire to play my banjo. I was banging out chords to “Suwannee River” when a whole passel of liberal Democrat demons came out of my body-- I saw a likeness of Obama in the carpet and my eczema cleared up. Poof! Just like that.
The heat is driving elected officials crazy—er.
The Representative Anthony Weiner (Democrat/married) couldn’t take it anymore, came out of his clothes and showed a very personal side of himself on the internet and had to ‘fess up that he was having online affairs (canoodlin’) with several young ladies. Odd to think about it but a massive electrical grid failure might have saved the man’s marriage.
Republican governors Schwarzenegger and Mark Sanford have illegitimate kids and mistresses and you have to wonder what were these guys thinking? It’s the day of the internet and news travels faster than corn through a goose and there’s nothing like wandering chickens coming home to roost to make you wish you’d kept your coop zipped up tight.
I intend to push on despite all the heat and bad behavior and keep raising my chickens in the spare bedroom, paint scripture verses on the roof of my house and sell cantaloupes off the front porch. We’ll have to just pray the serial killers don’t start marrying flag burners and the place gets over run with criminals and other congressional incumbents.
In the meantime we southern boys thrive on heat and there’s nothing hotter than a barefoot momma. So fix some cool sassafras tea, sugah pie, and come sit by my side if you love me. We’ll read Garden & Gun together, cook some possum and then go shoot some RC cola cans.
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