He and his elementary school buddies slipped through the broken fence of  the 128^th  and Halsted Street drive-in theater just behind LuArt’s Drive-In famous for their Italian sausage sandwiches. They shoved the slats aside, came in and put them back in place.  They sat on the hard stones in front of the cars in the darkness just beyond the light of the screen.  They watched Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood kissing splendorously on soft lush grass but as he sat on those hard stones, he couldn’t stop thinking of Brigitte Bardot, her pouty lips and perky breasts from last week’s movie.  The boys got some popcorn at the concession stand and when they couldn’t stand the hard stones on their butts any longer they slipped back through the fence, replaced the slats and headed to Jack’s house for the rest of the Friday night pajama party where they would dance to Elvis Presley songs played on Cliff’s cool, little, green, portable 45 rpm record player.

Eavesdropping on

university grads

in the next

National Lakeshore

campground site,

the very best

campground in the

entire state accord-

ing to those

who gathered at the

dump site to fill

up on fresh

water, he heard them

say that some

particular

grad school student

from back in the

day, who was

an absolute genius,

first in his class

fellow

of whom everyone,

including them of

course, was

jealous, just bombed out

on life, two, three

marriages

maybe more. The

National Lakeshore

campers who

didn’t bother with state

parks then turned

their attention

to religion, at which

point, he tuned out

and turned

up the sound on the

IPR Interlochen

classical

music station and

listened to a

particularly

sweet, little piece by

the French Impress-

ionist

Claude Debussy

while sipping a par-

ticularly

dry, light, fruity

little Pinot

Gris

and watching embers 

burn down in

the pit

after he had cleaned out

wet, soggy cigarette

butts,

charred, partially melted

styrofoam cups and

beer cans.

He stood at the commode in his little, egg-shaped RV at a state park in Northern Michigan and recalled walking half a block away from his grandparents’ home in a nice neighborhood on the far South-side of Chicago sixty years ago. He needed to pee and found a bush in that busy neighborhood and hoped no one would notice his eight-year-old back while he faced the bush with his arms arched downward curving toward his fly and his legs separated much like his pose behind the curtain in the camper.  Grams’ and Gramps’ are long gone as is the house in what is now a devastated neighborhood.  He recalled his favorite cousin falling on the front steps of the family church near his grandparents’ house and breaking her arm.  She now lives most of the year in Door County, Wisconsin and is a retired parish nurse.The church is still there; the congregation has changed completely but Jesus’ work of doing justice, proclaiming peace, healing the wounded and walking humbly with God in the old neighborhood continues.

At the Platt River Campground, reading

short stories about fly fishing before

falling asleep, his eyes fell on a des-

cription of what the author termed

“the arrogant stage” – the stage of

“fish counting.”  Apparently, it’s not

just for sophomoric fly fishers who

brag and try to one-up one another. 

Upon returning from a fly fishing trip

to Colorado,  he was asked, “Did you

catch any?” or “How many did you

catch?” or assuming he had some luck,

“How big were they?”  Just pleasant

inquiries? Maybe. Maybe not. Seems

like numbers and size are what count. 

So, like the author’s wise fishing buddy,

he went along with the game and said,

“Sure.  Many, many, many, really, really,

really big ones,”  with a smile on his face.

The author’s buddy said “Sixty-five good

size ones in just a couple of hours. How

about you?” People just lowered their

brows and said, “That’s nice,” turned and

went quietly into their houses. For what

were they fishing? Maybe not so many

fish and not so big, so they could say,

“Oh, that’s too bad. Better luck next time,”

and go into their houses, with a smile

on their faces as they close the door

behind them. Actually, the man said

“Four little browns.”  And then felt

obliged to explain that he was fishing

on a small creek where very smart little

fish live. And that seemed to make

the sophomores feel pretty good.

Or perhaps even better, “No, didn’t

catch a single fish.”  “Ah, too bad.

Got skunked, huh?” Then again,

perhaps they were just being

neighborly and the man was being

sophomoric.

They live in a very nice place;

some would describe it as 

paradise type space

with access up the dune and

then down to the big water’s

space.

The problem isn’t that they are

the riffraff in the valley

as those in their place

as a top duner humorously states. 

They are on a public access

road with plenty of space

for people of every stripe and race.

The problem comes from rules

that outpace

the thinking of the flat-landers, the dune

top wannabees who, down in their

flat-land space,

lift their noses on the other flat-

landers on public access

space

and who strive to impose their

restrictive rules and dominate

association space,

but the riffraff in the valley

will never embrace the false

posturing face

of those back road flat-landers who

would push and shove all

those with legal space

who hold their ground and look

the opposition straight

in the face

and say to back off now and don’t

embrace such an unethical

disgrace,

which isn’t just an illegal but

a far more damning and

deplorable place

for white, evangelicals to

embrace, and so it is in every

time and place.