A while back, I heard my brother say, “mental illness tends to hit our family, randomly”. Although I nodded, I didn’t look up to see whether he was looking at me. This snippet suggests, he may well have been looking in my direction. TOMMY SWICK and “THE END OF THE WORLD”: Like Tommy’s parents, I’m guessing my church attending folks anticipated a time soon, when life will become much calmer. My aunt Gladys (affectionate called “happy bottom” (glad-ass) and Uncle Max lived next door to our house on what was then a dirt road, three miles from town. After the Six Day War in ’67, the Israeli conflict had many astute Christians alerted for the ending-times. At 2:30 AM our loud, black phone rang, and rang, and rang. Answering machines did not exist. “Hello”! I heard Aunt Gladys on the other end, “Get your house in order, THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR”. Half awake, my heart started beating fast. I thought, “Quickly, Tom, ask forgiveness for all the stuff you’ve done, omitting nothing”. I couldn’t get back to sleep thinking about how much I enjoyed my friends, food, girls, and old Yamaha. You know normal stuff. Waiting patiently for the eastern sky to open up, I finally fell back to sleep. Two weeks later, I get another predawn call from Aunt Gladys. The dialog was identical, except with more facts why the predictions of the “ending times” are true, this time. My mobility was slow from a walking cast. They let me stay on as “water-boy” and affectionately earned the name, “mother”. I took care of the other Blue Devils, my freshman year. Darkness seems to feed a young boy’s imaginative mind. Me and Tommy Swick, we had a plan. My job was to continue “peg-legging” down the dirt road on my walking cast. I needed the head start. Tommy’s job was simply hiding under Aunt Gladys’ picture window among the bushes. Once I reached our mailbox, Tommy Swick was to scream at the top of his lungs… “THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END”. Surely, it would awaken the entire family to Christ’s joyful return. Possibly Tommy had to pee, maybe he heard Uncle Max’s footsteps. Regardless, he was impeccable with his delivery and the entire neighborhood could hear Tommy Swick yell– “THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END”. That was when I learned that “timing” was equally important. To soon, Tommy! “Ya suppose they’ll send Detective Nelson?” We’ll just tell him we’re in the same class as his son Rick. That’s ok, he’s too fat to run. We split-up and head for the wooded ravines between here and Danny Rudd’s. We’ll meet up at the top of Seymour hill. That was our plan. Horse Cave, KY – to be continued next year.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:41:37 +0000
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