Who Do You Trust?
According to Uncle John’s mama, there were treacherous gulches, deep ravines, and maybe even bottomless canyons in the Pee Dee River Hills where the family church was located. Every Sunday on the way to church his mama repeated her warning,”Johnny, don’t you leave the church yard.You hear me? If you get out of the church yard you might fall in one of those deep gulches,treacherous ravines, or maybe even that bottomless canyon that grandpa says is out there among the hills.You remember what I told you a long time ago? It was the time Grandpa Shepard said he saw the devil come up out of the river whilst he was out in his boat fishing and drinking,and it being a Sunday. Don’t you never forget I told you either. I know how cocky and inquisitive you are, but you had better listen to me before it’s too late.” "Them hills are slippery on account of holding heat, and cool air hitting them causes moisture to develop on them. Why, just a couple days ago I heerd of a man falling off the Grand Canyon.The idiot didn’t realize them rocks sloping downward towards the canyons edge sweated, and a careless person would go too far.”
“Johnny, are you listening to me?”
“Yes Mama! I’m a listening and I won’t go too far from the church.” As soon as the car stopped Johnny was out the door running to play with his friends, mostly his cousins, and aunts and uncles near his own age. Both sets of his grandparents practiced the Biblical admonition to procreate and populate the Earth. Many years later Uncle John was a grown man and he decided to go up in the hills at the church and see for himself. He hadn’t wasted all those Sunday, and Wednesday services. His imagination took him on many flights of fancy while the preacher was drumming away at his sermon. So, one Sunday, after everyone had left the church, he trekked out into the woods to see for himself. Sure enough, he found a deep ravine that he had played in a few times in his youth. He never had a problem then, so he decided to venture farther along an animal trail he found. Suddenly, his feet slipped on a damp spot of clay and he found himself tumbling down-ward at an increasing speed. He could grab nothing to slow his descent until suddenly he pitched over a hidden cliff. As he was tumbling through the air he was able to grab a small spruce pine tree. That stopped his fall for the moment, but he could see the trunk of the little tree creating cracks in the clay as it began to loosen it’s hold in the Earth.
Uncle John was overcome with sudden panic and he hollered as loud as he could,”Help me! Somebody help me. Is anybody up there?” A very deep voice, much like Sam Elliot’s voice in the Smokey the Bear commercials said,”John, this is God! Listen to me, my Son. Let go of the little tree. You are killing it.” John was so overcome with fear by now that he could only murmur weakly,”Is anybody else up there?” ©-2010-Jay Hudson
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