Zoomer's Stream of Consciousness

On November 11th, 2004, I sat down to write a sermon and this came out instead.

My folks used to have a home medical encyclopedia that listed every known ailment and its symptoms. We used to thumb through it on a regular basis in an attempt to self-diagnosis our various discomforts. I gave up on it after awhile -- we all did -- because we were turning into hypochondriacs. Such mundane things as sleeplessness, fatigue or thirst became harbingers of impending doom.

I feel the same way about prophecy, especially as it pertains to eschatology: the end times. As far back as I can recall there have been preachers and Bible scholars telling me that we're living in the last days. Natural disasters, plagues, famine, acts of war and anything at all concerning Israel have all foreshadowed the Second Coming. We try to find a perfect fit for 666 among prominent persons: Ronald Wilson Reagan, for example.

The proof of prophecy, of course, is in the fulfillment thereof. Otherwise, the horrors predicted by Nostradamus could have been prevented. It is only after the fact that we recognize the references to Hitler, the Kennedy assassinations et cetera.

Jesus tells us not even the angels will know when the end will come, but that hasn't stopped us from trying to pinpoint the date, selling everything and sitting patiently at the curb, awaiting the rapture. Everyone who has ever done this has been disappointed.

Thus far in my informal ministry, I've steered clear of some topics. One is Hell. I figure there's already plenty of preachers out there who are willing, and eager, to tell us who's going to Hell, who's already there, and what degree of torment they're experiencing. Their teachings are founded more in Dante than in Deity, but you wouldn't be able to tell them that. They'll tell you that you're going there, too!

Another subject I shy away from is the Last Days: Armegeddon, the Second Coming, the Rapture, the New Jerusalem, the thousand year reign, the end. I'm not qualified to teach it, and we're all powerless over it anyway. Studying the Biblical prophecies of Daniel, Isaiah and the Revelation of Saint John the Divine is like diagnosing yourself with a home medical encyclopedia: you'll recognize all the signs but you'll come to the wrong conclusion. Yes, we're all going to die, but none of us knows the day or the hour. Unless we happen to be on Death Row.

The world these days is bleak and cheerless and tiny. There seems to be little optimism about anything. There are almost nine billion of us and we're literally in each other's face and on each other's nerves. There is a 50/50 cultural division in our country (or 49/51) and the loudest faction is one with which I should feel a close kinship, but don't.

Conservative Christians see themselves as having a Christian president with a Christian mandate against all evils, real or imagined, foreign or domestic. As we thrash about in a melting world, alone and universally disliked, the Christian Right's only concern seems to be other people's sexual conduct. Where love, charity, and hetero-monogamy in a marital context are found, God is there. In fact, they don't even seem to require the love or the charity.

I don't think these brethren of ours are any more well-versed in Scripture than we are, but they do have preachers willing and eager to talk about Hell, and who's there, and who's on their way there. They might even want to include me, since I'm not one of them. So be it.

The Bible is a portable library: full of history and laws and stories and songs and prophecy and advice and nearly everything but math, science and car repair. Anything you need to reinforce your resolve can be found, isolated, extracted, magnified, expounded on and used as ammunition against those who would live in what you perceive to be sin.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery is one of the Ten Commandments. Most of us probably think we keep it, but Jesus says if we divorce and re-marry, we commit adultery. Many of us are divorced and remarried, and therefore in violation of the Commandments. Our brethren choose to overlook that.

Jesus says that if a thief takes our cloke, we should also give him our coat. Nobody pays any attention to that either. If we catch a thief absconding with our raiment, it's our Constitutionally guaranteed privelege and duty to blow a hole through him with whatever sort of firearm we might have handy. An assault weapon will do the job adequately. Thou Shalt Not Kill, unless the next guy violates Thou Shalt Not Steal.

Another topic I don't have any business preaching about is same-sex relationships. People who DO preach about it shouldn't. It's not a crime wave. It's not an addiction. Granted, their are Scriptural admonitions against it, mostly in the personal hygiene rules of Moses in the Old Testament, and in the apostle Paul's astonishment at what the Greeks did at the bath-house. Who among us goes to a bath-house?

I do feel that I can, with much certainty, talk about being a Christian. It means to live according to the lessons Christ taught and the example that He set: loving, forgiving, and not being judgmental. It means to live in hope and not despair; to live in the present and not be fearful of the future. It also means practicing conscientious stewardship over our resources. It doesn't mean having a higher regard for automobiles than humanity, it doesn't mean wiping out wildlife with oblivious indifference, it doesn't mean ratifying a Constitutional amendment that would deny life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to any segment of society that makes Midwesterners feel uncomfortable.

We are God's children. He understands all our languages, He knows our needs, and He will live in the heart that welcomes Him. He has given us His Commandments that we might walk with Him, not that we might judge others. He will come in His own time, not in ours, and we will see all things clearly when they have come to pass. Amen.

The Home (The Home)

Jim Kalafus and I co-wrote this faux cowboy waltz. I don't know why.

'Twas once in the saddle
I used to herd cattle
And yodel beneath Heaven's dome
But I've lost the battle
My bones they doth rattle
And they're gonna send me to The Home.

The Home! (the home)
The Home! (the home)
They're gonna put me in The Home
I used to shoot varmints
Now Depend Undergarments
Are what I will wear in The Home.

Oh I've done some killin'
And I've fought some villains
My exploits would make a great tome
But partial paralysis
And kidney dialysis
Are what I will fight in The Home.

The Home! (the home)
The Home! (the home)
They're gonna put me in The Home
Oh I used to shoot 'em
Now I'm coughin' up sputum
For that's what you do in The Home.

Oh I ate beef jerkey
And drank my Wild Turkey
As out o'er the range I did roam
My diet was splendid
But now it's rescinded
And I'm gumming puree in The Home.

The Home! (the home)
The Home! (the home)
They're starving me here in The Home
I stare in defeat
At the cold cream of wheat
That they give us to eat in The Home.

I shot off my jizzum
Way out on the Chisolm
And from Arizona to Nome
I got lots of tail
Off of Trigger and Dale
Now I'm passing blood in the Home.

The Home! (The Home!)
The Home! (The Home!)
I'm catheterized in The Home
Oh, sad is my fate
For an enlarged prostate
Hath hobbled my gait in The Home.

How My Daddy Won the War

My father, Donis Weldon Roberts, was driving from Garland to Sulphur Springs one Sunday when he heard an announcement on the radio that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Seven weeks later, Donis turned 31. He was unmarried, healthy and nobody was dependant on him for anything. In due time, he was drafted, along with every other eligible man in Hopkins County.

Donis was one of a busload of draftees who rode from Sulphur Springs to Mineola, Texas to be sworn into the United States Army. One fellow was so drunk he couldn't stand up to take the oath. The others tried propping him up against the wall, but he slid down into the floor. They tried holding him upright and lifting his right arm as the oath was being taken, but he slid through their hands, back into the floor. Finally, the others left him behind and proceeded on to boot camp. Their slippery friend showed up two days later, "looking like hell." He was still wearing the same clothes and needed a bath and several shaves, but he had been sworn in. When Donis was asked in later years what he thought about going into the service, he said, "I didn't think nothin'. Everybody else was goin'. Everybody!" Donis' serial number was 38137071.

By whatever method such decisions were made (possibly because he had worked in a funeral home and had worked on human flesh), it was decided that Donis would receive medical training and serve as a Surgical Technician, a glorified term for a male nurse’s aid. To this end he was assigned to the Medical Replacement Training Center at Camp Robinson, on the outskirts of Little Rock, Arkansas. He also spent some time at Camp Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado and Camp Barkeley in Abilene, Texas.                                   

In 1943, he rode a train to New York City. From there he crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth. His destination: Cirencester, Gloucester, England.

Donis crossed the Atlantic Ocean four times on three ships: the Queen Elizabeth, the Europa, and a smaller, less prestigious vessel whose name has eluded living memory. When telling his stories many years later, he may have called it the Banana Republic. If he did, he might not have been serious. The Europa was a German liner which was captured by the Allies in 1945 and briefly used as a troop ship. She would bring Donis back to the United States when the war ended.

The Queen Elizabeth was a British luxury liner and, at that time, the largest ship ever built. She had been refitted as a troop ship with little to suggest her former opulence. Thousands of soldiers lived and slept in crowded conditions. Much of their time was spent heaving over the rail. There was only enough fresh water aboard for drinking purposes, which meant the men were unable to shower for the duration of the voyage. They would arrive in England "pretty ripe." They had regular abandon ship drills, which involved getting into one's life jacket (called a "Mae West" in reference to the buxom film actress) and making one's way up to the deck as quickly as possible. There was a degree of admitted futility to these exercises: the life jacket would prevent you from drowning, but more than thirty minutes in the freezing water would result in death from hypothermia. If the ship sank, the suction would probably pull you down with it.

Donis never had to abandon ship. He was never rammed, torpedoed or bombed. Even so, after the war he spent the rest of his days on dry ground.

One of the first things Donis did in Cirencester was to acquire transportation. He bought a used three-speed "English racer" bicycle and was thus able to travel the several miles from the base into town. Along the way, he noticed a vegetable patch being tended by an old farmer. The fresh tomatos and onions were just what he needed to make the mess hall chow palatable. What the farmer wanted was cigarettes. The Army included cigarettes in the men's rations in those days, but Donis didn't smoke. The two worked out an arrangement by which they would exchange cigarettes for produce on a regular basis. The next time the mess hall served beans, Donis got a plateful of them, sat down, pulled a tomato and an onion from his pockets and proceeded to cut them up with his pocket knife. Heads turned. "Hey, Roberts! Where'd you get that?" He didn't answer. His mouth was full.

Donis had never been around any "yankees" before he entered the Service. They complained bitterly about being served beans, which they considered to be livestock feed. "They ain't like us," he said later. "They're a different breed of duck."

Barracks banter was usually bawdy. "I'm 180 lbs. of dynamite!" one would crow. Someone else would pipe up, "Yeah! With a two-inch fuse!" Other groin-related observations were directed at their Jewish buddies:  "You guys cut half of it off before you know how long it's gonna get!"

Donis played the harmonica (he called it a "French harp") in an old-fashioned style, and sometimes he would get together with a fiddler and a guitar player. They would play such chestnuts as "Red Wing," "Over the Waves" and "Home Sweet Home." Sometimes the other fellows would gather around and listen.

Donis frequented a pub in Cirencester, where he quickly got used to the dark English beer, served at room temperature. A sign hung on the wall: "Drink 'til ten," it said. This was followed by the image of a pistol and the word "two." He thought this was hilarious.

He heard Major Glenn Miller and the Band of the Allied Expeditionary Forces broadcasting from London on the Armed Forces Radio Network. Like millions of others, he thought Miller "sure made some wonderful music." He especially liked "American Patrol," an old march that had been given a swing arrangement. Miller played Cirencester in 1944, but Donis never mentioned it. One assumes he was on duty.

One day a high-ranking officer needed a ride into London, and "Roberts" was appointed to drive him there. Neither of them knew their way around England, and all of the sign posts and station names had been painted over or removed in order to confound the Germans, if they ever got around to invading. Eventually they realized they were hopelessly lost, and the officer began to berate "Roberts."

"If you'd like to drive, you're welcome to it," came the reply. The officer declined and they continued their journey. Whether they reached their destination or turned back is unknown.

"I went through Oxford," Donis used to say, pausing for effect before adding, "on a guided tour!"

The medical unit to which he was assigned saw a massive influx of carnage after D-Day -- the Allied invasion of Normandy in June of 1944. Donis never talked about what he saw and experienced, but it is known that thousands of wounded and mutilated soldiers were sent to Cirencester to be treated for their injuries, and some of them died there. For the rest of his life, Donis had nightmares. The family would hear him desperately shouting, "No! Oh, no!" in his sleep. He also mumbled a lot of things which couldn't be made out. Many years later, when I asked my mother if she had ever figured out what he was saying, she replied, "Oh, dear Gussie! I didn't want to know what he was saying!"

Whatever transpired in the second half of 1944, Donis came home on furlough in December. Once again he sailed across the Atlantic. In New York City he boarded a train and rode back to Texas. In Dallas he caught a bus to Sulphur Springs. Things were different now: he had a wife and a baby. While he was there, his mother-in-law died unexpectedly. The days were filled with culture shock and grief. All too soon, Donis was once again saying goodbye and making the long trip from Texas to England. As hard as it was to leave the first time, this was much worse. He later said that spending his furlough time in England would have been easier than coming home and having to leave again, and referred to the trip as "the worst mistake I ever made in my life." He was in the Service "for the duration" of the war, and if anybody knew how long that was going to be, they weren't saying.

Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies in May of 1945. Japan surrendered in August. Autumn found Donis eligible for an honorable discharge, and he took it, declining any and all re-enlistment incentives. He had risen to the rank of Corporal and received a good conduct medal.

Donis went back to his old warehouse job at Huey & Philp in Dallas.

One of his co-workers was in the Army Reserve, and tried to coerce him into signing up. Donis wanted no part of it. When the Korean Conflict began and the man was called up, Donis needled him about it. Years later, when asked how the man responded to his razzing, Donis chuckled and said, "He called me a son of a bitch."

With the exception of the farcical "Hogan's Heroes," he steadfastly refused to watch war-related  television programs -- especially documentaries. "I lived through it," he would say. "What do I want to watch it for?"

He never joined the American Legion, the VFW, or anything else.

He used to claim he had been a pilot in the cavalry. "I'd pile it here, and pile it there..."

Donis' dress uniform hung in his closet for the rest of his life. When he died in 1997, my mother wondered aloud what she was going to do with it. Apparently she never considered burying him in it. The uniform has hung in my closet since she died in 2003, in mute testimony to one man's contribution to a great achievement.