Sitting there as the new ugly duck in the puddle, in that little white church, while everyone did the church stuff was uncomfortable. For one thing, I did not connect with the music. The piano led hymns were nothing like ZZ Top, or Carlos Santana so as you can imagine, all their well-prepared chorus and worship songs were out of my league. After a bit, they got to the preaching part. That was what I was waiting for. I needed an answer to life questions.
No doubt the message was biblical and well conveyed. However, it was way over my head evidently as I just could not glean any revelation out of it. No huge answers invaded my soul, and I was anxiously ready to leave. But the preacher of a little white church with a handful of people, in a tiny burg of a logging community, was astute.
Pastor Dan Swan had someone else take care of the closing prayer while he beat it to the door. Even though I was in the back row, close to the exit, he won. He was at the door to find out who I was, where I lived, and what I was about. Reverend Dan was able to squeeze a little information out of me before I was able to breathe the fresh mountain air just outside the building.
As I walked across the lot, I could hear the gravel crunching beneath my logging boots as the lament rang in my head: “Wow, that was stupid, now that guy knows where I live and what I do. He will be after me like a Black and Tan Hound after a raccoon on a clear, moon-lit night. That preacher is going to do whatever he can to weasel out of me as much hard-earned cash as he can.
Well, that isn’t exactly what happened. Two or three weeks had passed before he pulled up in his rusty, little Volkswagen station wagon. Right off the bat, that was the wrong car for that community. You see, the logging industry was good during the 1970’s and the Pierce people in charge of taking trees to the mill had money in their pockets. That meant you needed at least a nice pick up. I had a nice pickup and a cool jeep. It just did not appear as though the preacher was hauling in the cash.
He pulled up in front of the house and got out of his car as I reluctantly shut the lawn mower off and walked over to the curb. We visited for a while, you know, just shooting the breeze, nothing serious. As he drove off, I was thinking: “No wonder that guy has such a small congregation. He doesn’t know what he is doing. He did not have his Bible under his arm, and he did not ask me why I had not been back to his church.” That was odd.
But he was odd. He started appearing at the Headquarters Bar and Café at 5:00 a.m. That is when everyone would show up heading out to work. That is where people told big stories, used excessive bad language, and smoked Camel and Marlboro cigarettes. There was a constant bluish hue smoke cloud lazily wafting about to the rhythm of the clientele’s movement. Today, they call that second-hand smoke. Back then, we just called it smoke.
It was extremely perplexing because anyone could tell you that preachers do not need to get up that early for one thing. They only work on Sunday. Also, they should not be in that environment, you know, where regular people hang out. Then, I began to see him at the NAPA parts store. That part wasn’t too difficult to figure out; I supposed that he had taken on a second job obviously to compliment the paltry offerings.
Being a mechanic, I frequented the NAPA store so visited with him from time to time. Then he would show up at the shop once and a while. He began to appear to be a normal, easy-going guy. I kind of felt bad that he did not have a huge gathering at his little white church. So, Sunday mornings, I started visiting the little white church on the corner, in Pierce, Idaho just to add one more to his attendance sheet.
