Toast Is Burning According To The Words Of Christ. Part one-the End I use to sing the chorus of somewhere over the rainbow, over and over again as a child growing up thru the years unto this very day. My Dad sung it to us on Road trips. He somehow knew when it was going to be on KXLY; So we were actually allowed to watch late night TV. But I would change the words; Somewhere over the rainbow, where parents did not lie. Dad made promises to us, Johnny and I; on the week end nights we use to sit; and talk to him while he ate dinner; He would not eat until ready to go to bed; he did not want to ruin a good drunk; Everyone else would go to bed. He would tell us stories about fishing, and all the things he was going to build; Sometimes he talked about War, Boxing and mother’s brothers after WW2 Tents that housed them; army cots all in a row. He and his brother John had their own cots. How they ate in the ‘big house’, a one bedroom old slave house about the size of a small 2 car garage. That now has been gutted to house Cows in Bordman, Oregon as I seen it in 2004. He said that they drank, played cards, boxed, and all played musical instruments in the tent during the cold months, and out in the dessert on the Umatilla river, at the fish ladder/locks. There was a family tragedy along the old highway a few years before, the death of my Aunt Darling. He would ramble on telling the same stories over and over; One particular spring I was 6 and Johnny was 41/2 or so in 1966; He talked about the garden he was going to plant that week-end; He described all the vegetables and how good it is that each one has a varied taste. He described the steps we had to take in preparation of planting a garden. He explained what rich soil we had. He told us about botany, the trees and the sun. He talked about the “PARABLE OF THE SOWER”, and “THE PRODICAL SON”. He was good at rightly dividing the Truth from within the Words of Jesus Christ. He went into detail also about the rich men who would not help the poor; How hard it was for the Rich Man to go to Heaven. He told me it was not impossible; but very RARE; and this was how he liked to eat his steak. He had me get a needle and thread from mother’s sewing box. As I attempted to thread the needle, he explained how to wet the thread with my spittle, and to squint my eyes for clarity. In frustration I poked myself and then he squeezed my finger until tiny drops of blood burst out, I cried loud cause it hurt; mother came out of her room and he told her to go back to sleep because he was going to teach me what I would not learn in school. He told me that both water and blood came out of Christ when they pierced his side to be sure that they had killed him. He said; that they took credit for murdering the Son of God, but the Truth was that Jesus Christ laid down His life willingly; ` UNTO YOU FATHER, I COMMIT MY SPIRIT AND MY BODY’ That the blood was a testimony against men of murder and in war. He said that the spirit was the water in my spittle, but no matter; For when I got older I would be able to thread the needle if I could find it in the Haystack; There were many Haystacks and some would be shaped like a wheel. This was a Mystery he said that I would understand at an old age. He taught us many nursery rimes by singing them to us over and over. I loved the sound of his voice and I can still hear his music in my mind today--- Sometimes a haunting Memory. He talked about the Camel that could carry water in their humps’ and carry men and goods on their backs across a dry Dessert where there was nothing but sand as far as the eyes could see. He warned us; about the furnace underneath the Dessert and how the sand was hot and could cook a man alive if they were foolish enough not to take plenty of water to drink. He said men without water; had walking nightmares of Oasis’ of water with palm trees and green vegetation. I asked him why he called it a nightmare. That it sounded like a Happy Dream to me. He replied “And I thought I was the teacher here . . . “, he laughed until he cried. My little brother and I were afraid to see our Dad cry, and we started crying too. He then grabbed me and hugged me tight and long as I trembled, for I only recollect him hugging me twice as a child, except to get a Big Hunk candy bar or a bag of EmanEms on Fridays when he arrived home from being at work all week, sometimes two. Those hugs were quick and ceremonial and stopped altogether when I was eight or nine. He whispered in my ear “I love you so much, and don’t you EVER forget it” many times he repeated this. Then he grabbed my little brother and did and said the same thing. My brother and I talked about it afterwards; “I was afraid he was going to do the same to me, did you smell the whiskey on his breath? I thought I was going to drown in it.”
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:25:47 +0000